mayday

"Melita Rowston’s The Crash is performed by Ainslie McGlynn and directed by Fiona Hallenan-Barker. It’s a dawn-till-dusk battle of wits and wills between Hayley and her young son. By 10 in the morning, he’s had it. She’s a train wreck, having already played trains, sung, danced and cried. It’s a war zone. A battleground. There’s only one consolation and compensation. “He sleeps so close. Closer than any lover. He clings to my hair; cries into my chest’; curls his little fist ’round my fingers.” McGlynn is intense and compelling. Even those of us who have no children, but who’ve observed and felt the demands placed upon haggard friends, intuited their longings for another life even amidst their abiding, boundless love for monsters of their own making, heard their silent, but deafeningly loud question (WHY?!), can empathise, while we speculate on what happened to the father in this family. Did he die in a crash? Or is the crash of the mother’s psyche, as she goes head on, headlong, head-to-head, day in, day out, in a love-hate relationship with her little boy? Such is the apparent impact of parenthood. LLOYD BRADFORD SYKE, CURTAIN CALL, CRIKEY| MAY 23, 2013 "