★★★✰✰
Florence Howard’s debut play Agatha bravely gives voice to an untapped conversation around motherhood; namely, the experience of a woman who adamantly knows she never wants children. The opening scene introduces the audience to Aggie and Ben, a couple in their late twenties, who are getting ready for Ben’s parents to come round for dinner. This domestic scene is disrupted by an undercurrent of frustrated bickering between the pair, which belies a deeper tension in their relationship.
This culminates when Ben excitedly finds an ultrasound scan in Aggie’s bag, to which she flatly responds that she won’t be keeping the baby. After this revelation the story abruptly flashes back to the couple’s first date, and takes the audience along the timeline of the relationship; from discussing their childhoods, to moving in together and meeting the parents for the first time.
These scenes slowly unveil the issues within Aggie and Ben’s partnership. Ben doesn’t like to read (Aggie is a writer with piles of books) and Aggie hates music (Ben loves it and moves his large record collection in with him). Aggie’s mother Lena left her when she was a baby, and Ben thinks this is the most monstrous thing a woman can do, whilst Aggie clearly has mixed feelings, along with far more empathy, for her mother’s situation. The crux of their disagreements arise when, in response to Ben’s excited vision for their family, Aggie firmly tells him she never wants children.
It’s hard to believe that a couple could have come so far with out this subject ever arising, and the scripts unconvincing attempts to explain this just serve to make Aggie and Ben appear even more unsuited to each other. Nevertheless, they try and make it work despite differing visions of the future. The heartbreaking question at the centre of it all asks: is their love enough to make the sacrifices demanded of them?
These arguments between the two, with their black and white opinions, are reflected back through Carly Brownbridge’s almost clinically bare set design, replete with monochrome swirls that are eerily reminiscent of an ultrasound scan. A cosier, more realistic twenty-somethings’ living room may have gone further in making the characters feel more well rounded and relatable. Instead, their conversations are lent an almost otherworldly, cold feel that only furthers the sense of their removed isolation.
It is an impressive playwriting debut for Howard who, as an actor first and foremost, had never written before penning the first scene of Agatha in lockdown. Her true talent, though, shines through in her blinding performance as Aggie. Trieve Blackwood-Cambridge (Ben) and Emily Mytton (Lena) also both adept in their roles, but pale in comparison to Howard who dominates the stage, her easy movements delightfully embodying Aggie’s frustrating stubbornness and internal turmoil.
The bold writing explores ideas of identity, bodily autonomy, and the torture of expectation. Whilst the depths of these themes are never fully explored, with conversations between Aggie and Ben often spiralling in frustrating circles, Agatha still successfully raises important questions that are rarely spoken about, and leaves you contemplating the answers long after the lights go up.
Words by Mairead Zielinski
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