Navigating conversations with your parents at Christmastime can be difficult for a whole host of reasons. You might find it so difficult, in fact, that you’ve decided not to talk to your parents at all. In Snowflake from British playwright Mike Bartlett (Albion), this is what Maya (Claudia Elbourne) has decided to do for the past three years in a row. But this Christmas, she's coming home.
However, Maya’s side of the story isn’t the first thing we hear. In a clever twist, Bartlett focuses on Maya’s father, Andy (James Lugton, as seen in Aussie television’s The Twelve). Andy tells us about all the reasons he thinks Maya could have left:his wife’s recent passing, his impulsive decision to throw out all the Christmas decorations in a grief-stricken panic, and his inability to talk to her about a whole host of things. He also shows us all the effort he’s put in to welcome Maya back: hiring the town hall, covering it in Christmas decorations, and even making a model of their family home. It’s a great narrative device that gently brings you into the world of the play, humanising Andy at the same time. Lugton plays Andy with a gruff charm that quickly makes you forget you’re supposed to hate this estranged father figure.
Jo Bradley deftly directs this production, and in the first monologue scenes she brings a great variety by placing Lugton at various levels of the town hall, and using subtle lighting changes to assist changes in mood or pacing. Set design by Soham Apte is similarly subtle, a realistically drawn community hall with the words “Welcome Home” in a banner across the central stage curtain. There’s tinsel, a small Christmas tree, and the hint of some festive lights in the rafters. Luna Ng’s lighting design uses minimal colour, keeping the play firmly rooted in reality.
Snowflake is a brilliant and tender portrait of a real, loving, messy father, and a real, loving, messy daughter.
When a stranger comes along (played by Lilian Alejandra Valverde) and ruins Andy’s peaceful contemplation, she starts to gently challenge his choice of grand gesture. She asks after the reason he’s hired the hall, and helps Andy to figure out the reason why his daughter left. Valverde plays “the stranger” with just the right amount of youthful passion, and the big reveal when Maya returns is well worth the wait.
Bartlett’s writing, paired with Bradley’s direction, slowly ramps up the tension, dropping delightfully juicy visual and verbal hints for you to string together. The ending is tear-jerking, but more than that, it’s a satisfyingly nuanced and messy conclusion – a great reminder that sometimes the question is not who is “right”, but who is trying when it comes to understanding differing and seemingly irreconcilable points of view.
A quip from Oscar Wilde comes to mind: “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” And while his statement is somewhat needlessly gendered, the kernel of truth in it is that as hard as we try not to become like our parents, sometimes we can’t escape the similarities we absorb from living with them for as long as we do. After all, the great horror of your twenties is learning that your parents are, in fact, real people.
Snowflake is a brilliant and tender portrait of a real, loving, messy father, and a real, loving, messy daughter. It’s a perfect start to the festive season and all the real, loving, messy stuff that comes with it. (Hot tip: get to the Old Fitz on a Sunday and enjoy some live jazz beforehand from 2pm for the full arty experience.)
The Australian premiere of Mike Bartlett’s Snowflake is proudly presented by Good Time Theatrics and JB Theatre Co. It's playing at the Old Fitz Theatre (which is inside the Old Fitztory Hotel in Woolloomooloo) until December 22. Find tickets over here.
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