EDINBURGH 2023: Review: VIOLET AND ME, Pleasance Courtyard

Double Emmy Award winner Dorothy Lyman explores her family history in this heartwarming solo show about feminism and trauma. A 1950s childhood in the safe and repressed Midwest air gave way to a successful soap opera star in California, but the road wasn’t easy. A mother shackled by a patriarchal view of womanhood, and father who loved his children but had a troublesome relationship with the notion of love, Violet and Me details the escape from a life of corporal punishment and belittling. “Can rage be transmitted genetically?” she wonders. 

The various lockdowns of the past few years allowed the actor time to go through her late mum’s belongings, where she was met with a strong woman who shone in her career and was described with adjectives that Lyman would have never associated with her strict, pragmatic parent. Her dry wit welcomes an accomplished reflection on family politics and motherhood in a journey that starts with domestic service and ends with female empowerment.

She has a captivating personality. It’s a trip down memory lane for Lyman and a particularly personal account of the compromises women have to make in order to be accepted in society for the audience. Cruel magazine articles and the judgement of strangers never stifled Lyman’s spirit. They actually did the opposite. Leaving her husband and kids to pursue her dreams gave her horrible guilt, but the fear of becoming a mother as violent and dissatisfied as hers made her persist.

It’s a tale of resilience, resentment, and regret told with instinctive storytelling and a dash of friendly advice. Photos of her relatives and snapshots of her life accompany her narrative, giving a visual reference to her stories. It’s a delicate, lovely play from a woman whose strength could never be ignored.

Violet and Me runs at the Place Courtyard on the following dates:  11-15, 17-22, 24-28 August.

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