Alexandra Wood’s 80-minute two-hander is about the growing gulf between a mother and daughter and the world’s rich and poor. But, although it has the best of intentions, it struggles to unite the private and public realms and is far stronger on relationships than the realities of commerce.
It starts well. Sofia, 23, is appalled when her mum, Patricia, suspects that she has landed a job as PA to a big banker only by offering sexual favours. This opens up an emotional chasm that becomes hard to bridge. But, as the mother’s fortunes decline, she turns more and more to her semi-estranged daughter. First, Patricia seeks financial help, then an interview with Sofia’s boss and, even after she has joined an anti-capitalist protest group, still looks for filial support.
I could believe totally in the mother’s neediness and tactical cunning. What the play suffers from is a calculated vagueness about the context. The play is two-thirds over before we learn it is set in Spain and, while Wood makes the valid point that it is no use bumping off bankers without changing the financial system, she never explains how that might be done.
The tension in Tom Littler’s production comes largely from the performances. Littler cunningly has the two actors mimic each other’s actions even as they grow further apart. Karen Ascoe as Patricia nicely suggests a middle-class mum driven to violent desperation by her own misfortune and the world’s inequity. Ellie Turner matches her well as the daughter who mixes angst, ambition and appalled horror at her mother’s activism.
However, while the play is specific about people, it is woefully abstract about the society that shapes them.
• At the Finborough, London, until 26 March. Box office: 0844 847 1652.
