At a silent meditation retreat, a young girl is struggling to make sense of the recent losses in her life. After punching a colleague in the face and having a massive breakdown, she's hoping to find peace. When her dad suddenly appears, seemingly out of thin air, she begs him to stay. Unfortunately, Kitty Falcon’s debut is just like many other opere prime: relatively unoriginal and with very little to add to the conversation.
The writing is flat and too sentimental, tonally odd, and features overly explicative dialogue. There’s a generalised lack of dramatic pull throughout. It’s as if the plot expects its audience to care about their characters without giving them any reason to. Falcon tips into pretentious turns of phrase, turning in a script that’s annoyingly under-worked in spite of her attempts.
Isabelle Tyner’s direction doesn’t succeed in adding any pace to the narrative either. She doesn’t have any tension to exploit, so her vision is static. Falcon is joined on stage by Patrick O’Donnell, who offers an impish, frenetic performance that’s diametrically opposed to Falcon’s own. This could be done on purpose, but the discrepancy adds to the already vague identity of the play.
Make no mistake, this is not the end of the line for Falcon. It takes time to develop a unique voice. Her first foray is quiet and largely uninteresting, but themes of grief and mental health always have something to say. You just need to choose the right angle and a good story to go with it. Onwards and upwards.
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