Simon Ward reviews Dead Mom Play at the Union Theatre

I have yet to decide how I feel about on the use of trigger warnings. There are the well-worn arguments about the lengthy list pretty much any Shakespeare would require. Furthermore, in my experience, the warnings tend to be more hair-raising than the actual shows they are warning about. In the case of Dead Mom Play, for example, noting that the play concerns ‘[t]hemes of death, grief, cancer, suicide, physical altercation, graphic descriptions of traumatic childbirth’ is entirely accurate, but does nothing to sufficiently prepare one for the effect of this freewheeling, madcap approach to the themes.

The show, on a short run here following stints at Edinburgh and the Unity Theatre, is written and directed by Ben Blais. It is the kind of play that feels semi-autobiographical, whether or not it actually is – the absurd, chaotic world of the end-of-life feels painfully and powerfully real. It is also a meta-theatrical extravaganza – questioning the very point of theatre in the face of the inevitability of suffering and death. Yet one of the answers it seems to offer is comedy – actual slapstick, Scooby-Doo cartoon comedy, up to and including the cape-wearing, scythe-bearing character of Death himself (Joe Bellis). While dealing, or failing to deal, with his mother’s imminent demise, Charlie (Griffyn Bellah) finds time to analyse in depth the lyrical content of the song ‘Makin’ Whoopee’, the treatment of Native Americans in ‘Davy Crockett’, and the delayed revelation in the cartoon show ‘Arthur‘ that Prinicpal Ratburn was gay.

Charlie talks a mile a minute, stumbling over his words in his eagerness to buttonhole you with his long-brewing theories. It’s painfully funny. And clearly all in the name of displacement activity. As the mother, Hannah Harquart spends much of the time comatose on her deathbed, but thankfully has enough time to point out the absurdity of casting that sees her playing the mother of someone who is basically the same age. Charlie’s relationship with his mother has not always been easy, not least when it came to dealing with his realisation that he might be gay. But when he really tries he can summon up a time when the only place in the world he wanted to be was snuggled up with her. And so, of course, the very last place in the world he wants to be is waiting by her bedside for her to breathe her last.

After a while we realise that Charlie’s gaming buddy is actually Death himself, and Charlie is trying to bargain with him – he wants more time with his Mom even if he’s not actually with her and is relying on the team of nurses to do the intimate caring. It’s la condition humaine – life is intolerable but he is desperate for it not to end. Mary Oliver’s poem ‘Wild Geese’ is printed on the back of the programme and runs like a kind of spine through the whole play. Charlie’s mother recites some of it early on and wants him to read it to her. He refuses, but when she’s finally gone he finds some solace in it.

Dead Mom Play is running until Thursday 17th April at the Union Theatre, 229 Union Street, London SE1 0LR