Dad goes missing, family secrets emerge and a promising dark comedy gets lost somewhere between the dementia, drama, dysfunction and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Rating
Good
A man paces around his garden looking anxious and concerned. He’s soon joined by another man who turns out to be his estranged brother, summoned because their elderly father, who has dementia, has been missing for two days. The two brothers are Nathan (David Solomon) and Aaron (Ivan Kaye), and they’re soon joined by a third brother, Karl (Nigel Betts), who, like their father, is an ex-policeman and therefore presumably knows what to do – or does he?
DAD is a new play from Solomon and starts as if it’s going to be a broad comedy with dark Ortonesque undertones. Nathan is a corporate solicitor, Aaron a struggling sculptor and their brotherly banter is often very funny. Discussing Nathan’s estranged wife Leila, Aaron observes that she’s “torn out your heart and stir fried it with your testicles”. Kevin looks very different from the other two brothers and at one point, Aaron calls him a “half-breed”, suggesting he may have a different mother. He’s also a very aggressive bully, strangling Aaron and almost breaking Nathan’s nose – this is not a nice man.
Later we meet Leila (Joanne Arber), who has cuckolded Nathan, leaving him feeling totally inadequate. She leaves and their gay son Daniel (Paul Kelvin) arrives unexpectedly from New Zealand to tell his father he’s very ill and asks whether Nathan would give him a kidney. Eventually Dad (Jerry Ezekiel) arrives back home and everything comes to the boil in a dénouement that feels almost inevitable.
Apart from the bullying, cuckolding, illness and a missing father, we also get grooming, coercive behaviour, sexual abuse and jokes about Mother Teresa. To say this is a dysfunctional family would be an understatement – all human life is here, and most of it appears to need therapy.
DAD starts as if it’s a sitcom about the relationship between three brothers but soon turns into a soap opera with enough plot twists for at least a year’s worth of episodes. Events happen at such a pace that there are more questions than answers. Why is their mother – or is that mothers? – never mentioned? Why, when Kevin and Aaron go to answer a ring at the door, does Leila come through the garden, only for the two brothers not to return until she’s gone? Why does Daniel assume his father’s kidney will be a match? Could Kevin have arrested Aaron in the past for drug dealing – surely a conflict of interest? Where were the carers the day Dad went missing? Why are Nathan and Aaron estranged? And why, when the brothers are worried sick about their father, do Aaron and Kevin wander off to get some KFC? All very confusing.
DAD begins like a train but then loses steam as it attempts to shoehorn too many issues into its 70-minute running time. Brittany Rex directs with a steady hand, but the acting is uneven and one character delivers much of his dialogue at migraine-inducing volume. It’s a shame the humour gradually reduces because there’s a genuinely funny play lurking beneath the chaos. Instead, Dad gets bogged down in familiar issues and increasingly improbable twists. What starts as a promisingly dark comedy gradually becomes more serious and less engaging, with the humour giving way to a succession of incredible revelations. Solomon is an excellent playwright and there’s plenty of potential here, but in trying to say too much in 70 minutes, the play ultimately loses some of the charm and wit that made its opening so enjoyable.
Written by David Solomon
Direction and sound design by Brittany Rex
Set Design by Karen Holley
Lighting Design and Sound Design by James Denny
Fight & Intimacy Directed by Nora Iso-Kungas
DAD plays at the Golden Goose Theatre until Saturday 3 October.
