Adelaide Fringe
\nMurray Bramwell<\/p>\n
When, in pre-school child care, Tom pushes a little girl because he doesn\u2019t want to be hugged, he becomes the subject of an Incident Report. \u201cHe became That Boy,\u201d his mother recalls, \u201cand I became That Mother.\u201d Writer and performer, Martha Lott powerfully describes the lonely challenges of parenting a turbulent child when everyone else has given up.<\/p>\n
**** Four Stars<\/p>\n
Sarah has two children \u2013 Hannah, and younger brother, Tom. One is easy-going and amenable. Tom, as his mother says, \u201cis kind of like \u2026the Energiser Bunny meets Tassie the Devil.\u201d She hastens to add – he is lovable and bright and loves to climb. On roofs and windmills and especially trees. In trees he feels safe when he is anxious. He also feels safe (and emotionally forthcoming) when he has his plush toy Monkey close by.<\/p>\n
Many families deal with such behaviour management issues and struggle to keep on top of things. Sarah takes Tom to doctors for testing and assessments. But he is not declared \u201con the spectrum\u201d or given any definitive diagnosis. By some grimly absurd logic that makes him normal and therefore ineligible for funded support.<\/p>\n
In its premiere Fringe season at Holden Street Theatres, That Boy<\/em> takes us into one crowded hour of Tom\u2019s life. It is a graphic and detailed account of the routines and strategies a solo mother uses to manage an unpredictable child.<\/p>\n The staging is as simple as it is compelling. Meg Wilson\u2019s raised platform set (warmly lit by Jordan Scheer) presents the complete chaos of a child\u2019s bedroom in all its multicoloured detail. Two model palm trees stand by the bed, stacks of bright red storage boxes, toys, games and discarded clothes cover the entire floor. A large Lego mat barely contains the bits and odds and ends of a profusion of playthings.<\/p>\n Director Yasmin Gurreeboo keeps the narrative close in and the emotion intense, but measured \u2013 making the mother\u2019s anguish the more poignant. Sascha Budimski\u2019s sound design subtly underscores the action.<\/p>\n It is then the task of Martha Lott to bring this story of love, desperation and persistence into sharp relief. For the full duration of the monologue, Lott\u2019s Sarah is doing what all mothers (and many Dads) do. She is tidying Tom\u2019s room as if to re-order his life. Putting things back where they belong, folding clothes, repacking games, reorganising toys and endlessly raking up Lego.<\/p>\n This play covers difficult issues of parental resentment and guilt, of social ostracism, self-harm and suicidal impulse. Martha Lott\u2019s excellent performance – as Sarah steadily coaches herself to be positive, constant and hopeful, is startling in its directness and quiet despair. It is a portrait of courage and devotion, and a lesson in how to tidy a room in 58 minutes.<\/p>\n That Boy<\/em> is playing at Holden Street Theatres until March 21.<\/p>\n InReview<\/em> published 18 February, 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adelaide Fringe Murray Bramwell When, in pre-school child care, Tom pushes a little girl because he doesn\u2019t want to be hugged, he becomes the subject of an Incident Report. \u201cHe became That Boy,\u201d his mother recalls, \u201cand I became That Mother.\u201d Writer and performer, Martha Lott powerfully describes the lonely challenges of parenting a turbulent child when everyone else has given up. **** Four Stars Sarah has two children \u2013 Hannah, and younger brother, Tom. One is easy-going and amenable. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,17,5,10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-41","category-adelaide-companies","category-archive","category-fringe","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3261,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions\/3261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}