Review: New Plymouth Little Theatre's latest play is a dark comedy that will make you think as much as you laugh

Gillian Gibbon (left) as Sinead and Gillian Somers playing Ciara and (right). Photo / Monique Matthews Photography

Erica Murray's The Cat's Mother is described as a dark comedy, and New Plymouth Little Theatre's production of the play certainly lives up to that promise.

Directed by Terry Darby and Jenny Lawn, the play stars Gillian Somers and Gillian Gibbon as Irish sisters Ciara and Sinead. While Somers is a familiar face to Taranaki theatre-goers, it has been a long time between performances for Gibbon, who is normally part of the backstage crew at New Plymouth Little Theatre.

On stage, the two Gillians have a fantastic chemistry as tuneful as their (consistent and very well done) Irish accents are. They are a great pairing to watch as they spar and bicker their way through the usual sibling arguments - who has the better life, who the cat actually belongs to, oh, and should we kill Mam and if so - how?

The play takes place over one weekend in Ciara's London flat, where Sinead has come for a visit. Sinead, practically housebound due to their senile mother's increasing needs, is fed up with Ciara's absenteeism from their home in Ireland, and her inability, or unwillingness, to face the reality of their mother's condition. To force the conversation, and to have a rather unexpected one as well, she has come to London with the family cat, and the sisters' Alzheimer's-afflicted mother.

What, she demands of her sister, are they to do? A rest home is too expensive, making the alternative - killing Mam, somehow seem like a reasonable option.

Despite this dark premise, the play gets plenty of laughs, thanks not only to the fast and funny dialogue but also a great supporting cast including a standout performance by Rhiannon McGrane as an alcoholic zookeeper who Ciara seeks euthanasia advice from.

The action moves between Ciara's flat, where she and Sinead argue about the fate of their mam, and a variety of locations where Ciara seeks advice from a range of people, from a caffeine-withholding barista to a personal trainer, an emergency room doctor, a healer and the aforementioned zookeeper. The scene changes are a little distracting at times, but the stage and props team do a great job of creating the mini-locations with just a few well-placed props.

While all the supporting cast are excellent in their roles, it really is up to the two lead characters to carry the play, and other than a few prompts being needed, the two actresses rise to the challenge, deftly bringing out the humour without minimising the bigger issues - the cost of aged care and the reality of dementia.

With the mix of humour and issues, it's not surprising the audience sometimes misses the immediate cues of when to laugh or clap, and a last-minute change (with Covid meaning one character was edited out of the play) not being communicated to the audience meant Saturday night's show ended with a longer than deserved pause before the applause came. That was not because the play wasn't good, but purely the audience trying to understand why they hadn't seen one of the characters identified in the programme and therefore wondering if it was a scene change or the end of the story itself.

Even without this slight confusion, the play is written in a way that it was always going to end abruptly, leaving the audience left wondering not only about the fate of Mam and her two daughters, but also some of life's bigger issues.

The details:
What: The Cat's Mother, written by Erica Murray
where: New Plymouth Little Theatre
When: July 13 - 23
Tickets: Available from eventbrite.com