Ivy – New Theatre – Review
by Frank L

Ivy – Written and Performed by Helen McGrath

The concept of a home is central to Ivy’s existence. It dominates her thoughts. She had a home, a husband and two kids, and now she has none of them. She has arrived in some anonymous, shared accommodation where she has been allotted a nondescript, small box room. There are other occupants of this ungenerous edifice. Out of this challenging material, McGrath has created a piece of theatre which depicts the world of a woman who, for whatever reason, has been separated from her children and lives now alone, surrounded by others who have endured a similar fate.

The set consists of a collection of cardboard boxes and some plastic ones neatly stacked, which contain her possessions. At the front of them, there is a large patterned sheet under which can be discerned, if carefully observed, the outline of a human lying across some of the boxes. The play begins with this being springing into life, suddenly and with force, shooting her arms and legs out, thereby scattering the miscellaneous contents of two small plastic boxes all over the place.  By this means, Ivy (Helen McGrath) has arrived on stage and she is wearing a stylish pair of pyjamas, a relic of a time when she had a home. All she has now physically is this small space and her boxes, but she also has her memories of her past and her hopes for the future. Ivy vividly recounts her daily existence in this nondescript edifice, the other occupants, the facilities or lack of them, her children for whom she yearns and her struggles with officialdom.

Out of this mean material, McGrath has written an impressive and beautiful script which she delivers with certainty and passion.  However, she intensifies the words with a performance of high energy and movement. It is a piece of theatre which is as much physical as it is verbal. Director Esosa Ighodaro achieves this challenging feat.

Throughout, there is the constant pain of the loss of a home, but McGrath manages to create many moments of high comedy as she describes the other occupants of this edifice and their various obsessions. Ivy, for all the vicissitudes, including from the officialdom of a housing agency, which encompasses her, remains a rational, intelligent woman determined to do the best for herself and therefore for her children. She is not a statistic.

McGrath has created in Ivy a thought-provoking, theatrical experience which is poignant, at times comic, but at all times absorbing.

Team:
Writer and performer: Helen McGrath
Director: Esosa Ighodaro
Set Designer: Dylan McGloin
Sound Designer: HK Ní Shiordáin
Movement Director: Ois O’Donoghue
Lighting Designer: Cathy O’Carroll
Stage Manager: Eva Walsh
Poster/graphic design: Erin Barclay
Poster Photography: Dominik Turkowski