The Memory of Water

A loved one’s passing and the reunion of a fractured family is the premise of many black comedies. Yet few manage to blow it out of the water as spectacularly as Shelagh Stephenson’s powerhouse, The Memory of Water. Playing at Chapel off Chapel, Milk Bar Mag checked out the big-hearted and bittersweet examination of three sisters in the tailspin hours before their mother’s funeral, all of whom are tormented by long-buried secrets, hidden insecurities and their version of the past. 

Sweeping cello music, played by Grace Gilkerson, fills the venue as the audience files in to take their seats and are immediately taken with a sleeping figure. We soon learn it is middle-child Mary (Ana Mitsikas) sleeping in her deceased mother’s bed, awaiting the funeral. Sleeping restlessly already, eldest sister Teresa (Carissa McAllen) — the in-control, sensible and straight-laced sister — enters the room and their reunion is as icy as the snow storm raging outside. Mary’s hopes for peace and quiet are dashed when Catherine (Karla Hillam) — the wayward, self-obsessed, ‘baby’ of the family — arrives carrying a bunch of shopping bags. Hilarity and bickering ensue.  

Director Richard Sarell crafts a compelling and entertaining portrait of three sisters living in their mother’s shadow. Janet Watson Kruse was a delight as the lively ghost Vi, giving us a glimpse of what she was like as a mother, a wife and a woman. Her authoritarian and stern demeanour was unwavering in arguments with Mary as we discover her failed marriage triggered an emotional fragility where she needed the attention of every man in the village, at the expense of her daughters. 

Although it may have taken a little long to get off the ground, the show shined once all three sisters were on stage, especially when they drunkenly tried on their mother’s clothes between swigs of liquor. Hillam was a riot playing Catherine, whose best moments include accidentally kissing her brother-in-law Frank and her downward spiral when her boyfriend breaks up with her over the phone. The show’s most eerie moment was when a real coffin was carried on stage for Teresa, Mary and Catherine to say their final goodbyes. 

The set design was impeccable. Decked out in drapes weathered by time and dust, religious statues, dainty knick-knacks, and a wardrobe packed with clothes that are a vintage shopper’s dream, the set exuded warmth and authenticity, and felt as safe as your mother’s bedroom. 

The Memory of Water is an amusing play exploring the influence parents exert in shaping our life decisions and relationship choices. 

The Memory of Water 
Chapel off Chapel, 12 Little Chapel Street, Prahran
Till Saturday, 26 November 2017
chapeloffchapel.com.au