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| Belinda McClory & Emily Tomlins in My Sister Feather at La Mama Photo: Sarah Walker |
A vending machine stands sentinel in the prison yard. It
says it’s out of order, but Egg explains to her sister Tilly the sign is there
so they don’t have to refill it. It looks broken but it still works.
Tilly is visiting Egg for the first time in many years, so
long estranged that Egg doesn’t even know their mother has died. Their meeting
is tense to begin with; Tilly speaking for Egg as she stands silently regarding
this woman who has been gone from her life for so long.
Tilly comes bearing two letters that their late mother has
written to them. The only person who has read the letters is the prison guard
who checked them on Tilly’s way in. Neither sister is in a hurry to read them,
both certain they know what she has said and scared they didn’t really know
their mother at all.
Olivia Satchell’s play My
Sister Feather is a deeply searching two-hander that explores the dark recesses
of memory and the fraught nature of fractured familial relationship. Emily
Tomlins and Belinda McClory are brilliant as Egg and Tilly, both as reserved
adults and uninhibited children. One minute they regard each other with years of
suspicion between them and the next they are sitting on a table pretending to
be “The Owl and the Pussycat,” singing the poem together.
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| My Sister Feather by Olivia Satchell Photo: Sarah Walker |
The games they played and lollies they ate and books they
read were evocative of a childhood I recognised, making the broken adult
relationship in the cold, sterile prison heartrending.
James Lew’s set is appropriately minimalist, but with deft lighting
changes by Jason Crick, the young sisters can make whole new worlds from a
table, chairs and a rubbish bin. Tom Backhaus’ sound design is rich and nourishing
in moments of reflection and harsh and alarming in the present day.
Satchell is both writer and director and her work in both
roles is impressive; the writing is sharp and clear and her directorial
instincts allow the work to sing.
The vending machine stands sentinel. A camera watches the
two sisters. The audience stares at them from both sides. The relationship of
Tilly and Egg looks broken but it still works.
La Mama is seeking support on two fronts at the moment –
fundraising for accessibility and to help stage upcoming works while they wait
for the Faraday theatre to be rebuilt.
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