*** (3 stars)
“Heartwarming”
This show is an interesting blend of shadow puppetry, shadow play, and very personal storytelling. Harley Brooke Walter remembers their grandmother’s influence on themself growing up, and contrasts their relationship with Harley’s one with their birth mother.
It’s obvious from everything that they don’t say, rather than what they do, that Harley didn’t have a good parent-child relationship, but had, and still has, a brilliant one with their grandmother, whose voice we frequently hear in snippets from recorded conversations.
Harley begins by saying that they are not their grandmother’s daughter – and I guess that, biologically speaking, they are not. What comes through over and over again is how much Harley admires Noonie’s warmth, humour, kindness: her skills with her hands, her affinity with the birds that come to her back yard, the way she faces up to and deals with difficult situations, instead of hiding from and denying them. As one who themself ‘learned to be quiet, learned to be small, not to be an inconvenience’, they have nothing but admiration for how their grandmother found a way not to be quiet, not to be small, and to deal with, accept and move on from situations which might have destroyed a lesser woman.
Years of therapy, of introspection, and continued and continuing observation of their grandmother have enabled Harley to arrive at the realisation that they may not be technically her daughter but that this is how they want to be, how they can be if they allow themselves to be, and to let go of the connection with their birth mother and her expectations of how a daughter should be.
Harley’s show was dogged with misfortune – losing all the equipment for the show shortly before its opening, though happily being reunited with it in time for today’s performance. Today a malfunctioning lamp [which decided to work halfway through the show] meant that she had to use a flashlight for the closeup shadow play, resulting in somewhat clumsier than usual transitions and effects.
But there was also much to enjoy. A hummingbird puppet which came and nestled on my hand at one point, was an unexpected delight, as was a red cardinal puppet which brought life to grandmother’s story about the red bird in her yard which didn’t fly away when she came out to put food down in her yard. And Harley’s connection with their audience is immediate and warm: and they allow their vulnerability to shine out without in any way asking for our sympathy or pity.
What emerges in the course of the show is a heartwarming account of a lovely, loving, hospitable and strong Southern woman, through which Harley is finally able to realise they have so much in common with her that they can write a love letter to themself in the writing of this show.
Not my grandmother’s daughter, Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Venue 140 for more information go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/not-my-grandmother-s-daughter
ScotsGay Arts 