Angelique is at college studying flower arranging. She’s 17-years-old and this course is a map for her future and an escape from a rough childhood. Her mother is in prison. Her father has remarried. Her boyfriend is manipulative and controlling. She’s living with a carer, so she has a roof over her head. But the only thing that really excites her is flowers and learning how to brighten people’s lives with them. She decorates a wedding but her teacher plants a dream in her mind; one day she’ll work at Fashion Week.
Emma
Dennis-Edwards’ Funeral Flowers is a raw monodrama, which won the
Scotsman Fringe First Award at Edinburgh Festival, and is now open for its
Australian premiere season at Red Stitch Actors Theatre.
Inspired by
the true story of Gina Moffat, the play is honest about the lives of young
people, disadvantaged by cycles of poverty. Angelique tells us early on that her
mother named her after a kind of tulip. She also explains that while everyone
thinks of Holland when tulips are mentioned, the flower actually originated in Persia.
It’s clear that everywhere she goes, this student flower-arranger feels out of place.
Actor Lucy
Ansell plays Angelique and all the other people she encounters along the way.
Ansell has proven herself one of the best young actors on our stages, so it’s
always a thrill to see her. This one-woman show is a real gift to showcase her talents.
Set
designer Bianco Pardo gives Angelique overgrown concrete steps to scramble over, with a slide in the dead centre. It’s snakes and ladders for the character;
climbing up over and over and then sliding back down more often than not. Scattered
amongst the dried plumes of grass are bits and pieces of a childhood long gone
or one Angelique might never have enjoyed.
Kyra Ryan’s
lighting design and Christian Biko’s composition and sound design fill in Angelique’s
world, with sounds that trigger memories or music that briefly gives her energy
before it becomes overwhelming. Sometimes there are voices that haunt her, but
most of the time Ansell inhabits each and every character with ease. The way
she switches from person to person in a conversation is fully transporting.
Director
Candy Bowers crafts a remarkable hour of drama here, finding a captivating range
of rhythms and tones throughout. Angelique may, for most of the show,
feel trapped, but Bowers creates moments of day-dreaming and reverie to fill the
space. Inside all this trauma, the character forges a strength and discovers some joy.
I was
worried, for much of its running time, that this work would keep digging into
the dark corners of existence, as we see Angelique recount some devastating
moments. But there is flashes of hope all the way through and the ending is
transcendent.
We don’t
get a lot of work on Melbourne stages about people struggling with systems that
are built to chew them up; not outside the work of Patricia Cornelius, at
least. Funeral Flowers follows in the steps of Red Stitch’s remarkable
production of Iphigenia in Splott, another British play about a woman on
the fringes – a canary in the coalmine of society.
There’s
been a lot of talk recently about how theatre is dying, which I feel has been a
constant refrain for as long as I’ve been going to theatre, let alone making it and reviewing it. It’s hard to really believe it’s all doom and gloom when an
incredible production like this comes along – every element working together in
harmony. Funeral Flowers is a tough watch, but it blooms into something magical.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Funeral Flowers is playing at Red Stitch until August 23
Photos: Jess D'cruze
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