Anna Burnside reviews 'a particularly nuanced and delicate' production with convincing performances that has something worth saying.
A chaotic mother arrives in her fastidious daughter’s studio apartment. There is an immediate intergenerational battle about where she should put her shoes. Unpacking, she stows away clothes, slippers, toiletries and her own toaster.
At first Mother is a 21st century update of the Irish mammy: garrulous, religious, anxious about how to use a key fob to get into the building. But as she and her journalist daughter rub along under one tiny roof, it becomes clear that she is building up to a manic episode.
Followed, inevitably, by the crash.
Writer Joanne Ryan based In Two Minds on life with her own fragile mother. It's a particularly nuanced and delicate study that centres the daughter, struggling with the low self esteem and guilt that comes from decades of coping with a demanding and capricious parent.
One scene, where Mother tells Daughter that she’s an almost 40-year-old failure without a property, partner or proper job, rings all too horribly true. And we also get to see the aftermath, when both are dancing around the unspeakable things that have been spoken very clearly indeed.
Irish company Fishamble rarely disappoints, and this is a moving and ultimately optimistic piece of work. Pom Boyd is tremendous as the older woman, giving a 360 view of all the faces of BPD. Karen McCartney convinces as the frustrated daughter, desperately trying to keep it together as the roles reverse and she has to care for her own mother before even having the chance to have children of her own.
In a crowded marketplace, this treatment of mental health manages to say something worth hearing.
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In Two Minds performs at the Traverse Theatre until August 25, 2024. Check the theatre website for specific performance times.
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