Suzy Storck: Finding compassion for an overwhelmed mother
Alexandra Conlon’s lead performance cuts through Magali Mougel’s eclectic play.
Smock Alley Theatre - Boy’s School, Dublin
★★★☆☆
Mother knows best, everyone knows. But since the chilling vengeance of Medea, whenever a mother may have grim thoughts about her children, it raises alarms: Has she really been left unchanged by parenthood? How come a maternal bond was never forged?
It should be said that when, in Euripides’s ancient play, Medea shockingly murders her sons, it is part of a revenge blitz against a husband who is marrying someone else. But in Suzy Storck - Magali Mougel’s tense drama, which treads similar waters to the Greek tale – there is no betrayal. Suzy, played by Alexandra Conlon, is urged into an overwhelming life as a stay-at-home mother, as someone more mortal than mythic.