Review: Daylight Athiest - "Tough subject done superbly"

REVIEW
The Daylight Atheist by Tom Scott
Directed by Lisa-Jane Hay
With John Foster as Danny Moffat

Based on the life of Tom Scott's father, Daylight Atheist retells the story of an Irish immigrant who comes to New Zealand after WWII, and later joined with wife and child, both of whom are a bitter disappointment. The storytelling is grippingly good, full of wit, grit and massive impact, all that we would expect from the hilarious pen of Scott.
 
The performance and direction is a triumph. From the fascinating set, jammed full of paraphernalia and muddle, everything in its chaotic place, dust almost settled on the piles of household rubbish. To the one man narrative by Foster, whose skill brings other characters teeming to life until the stage is bursting at the seams. There is vast comfort to be had in the visual and literary feast.
 
Daylight Atheist is intensely personal and deeply moving. What drives someone to write something about a man who destroyed the happiness in your own mother? Who chased you down the hall and slammed his fist into the door, leaving a hole that was never mended? Never bought furniture or comforts of life, resented every child as it was born for being born?
 
The main reason is because it is a good, strong, interesting, all too familiar story. A story littered with the flotsam from war, the waste of life and opportunity, of leaving one's country, of poverty and embitterment, disappointment and humour, the essence of good drama but without self pity.
Only from a writer of  Scott's calibre could we expect such a personal story that doesn't reek of subjective indulgence. Absolute integrity to the themes and the revelations are vital and in every respect it felt these had been addressed by director and actor alike.
 
With artistic understanding of the importance to balance humour and tragedy for either to work, they have worked as a team, delivering an utterly engaging piece of theatre without apparent hitches in a drama that flowed between the obstacles like a dance. Clever innovations with the set brought staggered chronology into smooth time frames and Foster was  at home either as a child or as a grief stricken friend.
 
The result is a tightly produced, five-star package from every angle,  full of memorable quotes and jokes as well as achingly painful memories, and, I predict, one of the very best dramas to be seen this year.