Family Tree At Theatre by the Lake, Keswick Review

Reviewed by Jo Hardy

Written by Mojisola Adelbayo and directed by Matthew Xia this award winning production is presented by the Actors Touring Company and Belgrade Theatre in association with Brixton House Theatre.  I attended the only showing at Theatre by the Lake Keswick on 11th May but the show is touring the country until 17th June , dates and venues can be viewed on atctheatre.com.

The show runs for 90 minutes without an interval and is recommended for ages 14 plus, it deals with non consensual medical experiments on black women and children ,discusses cancer and contains strong language.

The show is inspired by the story of Henrietta Lacks, a very important woman in medical history but I have to admit that before seeing this show I had never heard of her and had no idea what to expect.

The set which was the same throughout the performance looked like a space age Stonehenge, a semi circle of stone pillars and a very futuristic looking tree ( which I interpreted as a garden in heaven) and has a cast of five very talented actors.

The show opened with Henrietta centre stage who poetically gave us a brief history of her life and death, how her cells were harvested after her death, without her consent and used to make great advances in medical science from cancer treatments to covid -19 vaccines.  Someone made a lot of money out of this but it certainly wasn’t Henrietta’s family.
We are also introduced to three nurses who are in the heavenly garden.  They tell us the story of how hard they had to work during the covid epidemic and some of the racism they had experienced it becomes clear that they died from covid.

Next in the garden we meet three plantation slaves who were subjected to terrible medical experiments by Dr Sims.
Making brief appearances through all these scenes is the looming presence of the smoking Marlborough man representing the cancer that killed Henrietta and in the end killed him and he is buried in the garden by the nurses.
There was a part where the tree in the garden lights up and starts talking to us but I found this very abstract and couldn’t relate to it at all.

Overall I found the story about Henrietta Lacks fascinating and I now want to read more about her but I felt the show was too abstract and being without a plot was difficult to follow and a bit disjointed.  It threw a lot a us, raised some very important issues but at the end I felt overwhelmed by all the messages it was sending out and would of preferred more focus on Henrietta’s story, in fact I think the story of the nurses and the plantation slaves could be explored more.

Theatre by the Lake is a beautiful modern theatre set on the edge of Derwentwater, a short walk from the centre of Keswick with good modern facilities and ample parking they have a varied packed program for the rest of the year which you can find on their website theatrebythelake.com.

Rating: 4/5