Our Fathers at The Lowry Review
Our Fathers
The Lowry, Salford Quays
Reviewed by Laura Parle
Our Fathers is a play from, the theatre company Babakas which seeks to explore just what it means to be a father. At the start, we meet Mike and Bert a gay couple, and their friend Sophia. The piece centre’s around an unusual request – for Mike to become a surrogate father for a woman he has never met.
As the play progresses it looks at what it truly means to be a father through Mike, Bert and Sophia’s own life experiences. This is done in a variety of ways through imagined conversations, dance, shadow play and audience interaction. A simple and effective set is dominated by a screen used for projection of film, slides and shadows.
Sofia’s back story is about her relationship with her father. He appears solely as a shadow projection, he is a larger than life Greek patriarch who is projected to be strong and dominant. Throughout the life of the play we see his character change and develop to the stage where the roles have been reversed and he finds himself “leaning” on his daughter for support. Moving onto Bert his father walked out on his family when Bert was in his teens and he has never quite recovered from this, his tale is told through the medium of dance and imagined conversations. Finally Mike’s back story is a tale of heartbreak his father died young, apparently the result of a genetic weakness. His story is told through archive film, journal entries and imagined conversations.
The whole play works as it makes you question what being a father truly means, at times I found the play to be uncomfortable viewing but I think that is the beauty of it. For me I found it hard due to being adopted and as a result I have always questioned what makes a parent/father this play actually helped me to put some of my ill feelings away. If you enjoy analyzing and being introspective then this play is for you.
Rating: 3/5
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