(4 / 5)
I have enjoyed a huge ice-cream sundae in the café and am happily taking my seat, when Enid comes over and has a chat. She tells me about the nasty business with her husband and how she’s had to sell the house.
It is a nasty business too. Poor woman. Homeless. Di gartref. How easily it can happen.
I have no idea how I have become fluent in Welsh. Enid is chatting away and we are all listening and we are all tutting and laughing and commiserating with her. She is exaggerated as a story-teller, she relishes the telling of her tale, she compensates for her loss through her canniness. We like Enid but we see she is a cunning old bird. We are sorry when her home is taken and renamed: Miramar. Awel y Mor is nicer, we agree. We don’t mind her moving back in while the new owners are away, china dogs in another family.
The slapstick comedy of the sausage and mash dinner hidden in the cupboard when the inevitable knock on the door comes. We are encouraged not to like the smart and sassy daughters of Miramar but of course, eventually we do. And the sausages make their mark on all of us.
This is about communication – about showing us that spoken language has just one part to play and so we roll from Welsh into English and back again without even noticing. It is about family, life and death and consequences. It is about different tastes and different times and places. It is about home. It is about shit. Cachu. It happens.
Simple props, careful costume and straightforward lighting. All we need to establish a sense of a house and its people in transition. It is nicely performed. Alice and Georgina make good foils to the characterful Enid. Light and dark, this is a strong play with a tidbit of fiery drama at the end. Y sosejis.
I ask two ladies, who are sitting in the evening sun outside The Red House on a Saturday night in Merthyr, whether they speak Welsh. No, they say in unison. Didn’t need to. Understood every word. We’ll be coming again. So funny. We laughed and laughed. Same here, I say. Finally, my knowledge of Welsh swearwords comes in handy and I share some choice ones. We part and you can hear us all laughing up the street. Am dipyn.
We all know everyone in it – recognise and enjoy!
Play: Miramar
At: The Red House, Merthyr
Playwright: Rebecca Smith-Williams
Producer: Rebecca Knowles
Director: James Williams
Theatre: Triongl
Cast: Enid – Valmai Jones
Alice – Rebecca Knowles
Georgina – Rebecca Smith-Williams
Seen: 7.30pm, 18th June, 2016
Reviewer: Helen Joy for 3rd Act Critics
Running: Saturday 18th, Redhouse , Merthyr Tydfil
Wednesday 22nd – The Welfare, Ystradgynlais http://www.thewelfare.co.uk/
Links: http://www.triongl.com/miramar.html