Simon Ward reviews The Summer After Dad Died at the Hen and Chickens Theatre

Written and directed by Danish playwright and actor Sarah Majland, The Summer After Dad Died is set in Denmark in the hot summer of 1985. Three sisters, Marianne (Halli Patterson), Tina (Milja Martilla) and Anna (Cristina Parracho), have gathered in the family summer house for a week’s holiday. Marianne comes with her partner Peter (Boyan Petrov) and their new baby, Tina with boyfriend Thomas (Eddie Pop). The death of their father the previous year hangs in the air. In the way of things, the sisters revert to the roles they have always played in the family, and things become fractious as old tensions and rivalries resurface. The summer idyll faces storms both internal – the baby’s seemingly consant crying, the fatigue of the new parents, the sisterly bickering – and external – the country is going through a financial crisis.

As the play unfolds, the sisters’ carefully constructed facades of normality and happiness are gradually stripped away. Their relationships to each other, and to their father, come under the microscope and the scrutiny is painful. And their sexual relationships are not spared either – no-one emerges with what they thought they had, as long-concealed grievances and betrayals come to the surface. We learn, for example, that Marianne has always blamed Tina for their mother’s death – it is implied that she died in childbirth. They share a father with Anna, but she was born after their father re-married. Their father seems to have been a difficult man, and they spent their lives vying for his attention. So they are ill-prepared for facing the world, and, especially, perhaps, for finding someone to share their life with.

There are definite echoes of Chekhov here – the three sisters, the summer house setting with literal and metaphorical storms brewing, a longing for unreachable happiness. Billed as a dark comedy, there were not many laughs to be had. The characters are either self-deceiving or all-too self aware. Their coping strategies don’t really help them when the going gets properly tough.

This is an ambitious play. The setting, both in terms of time and place, will not be familiar to many in the audience, and some more scene-setting might have been useful. Having a newspaper in Danish is a nice authentic touch, but it did mean that any helpful clues in the headlines were lost to non-Danish speakers. Likewise, the term ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ which seem to be a kind of gay club, carries quite a different connotation to a British audience – another translation would have helped to clarify the meaning. It’s an interesting study of these characters, but it is hard to warm to any of them. We don’t see any of them at their best. As their lives start to collapse, it feels inevitable, but strangely unmoving.

The Summer After Dad Died is running at the Hen and Chickens Theatre, 109 St Paul’s Road, London N1 2NA, until Saturday 26th April