one4review | On 20, Aug 2023

An enthusiastic insight into a woman’s relationship with her mother. A mother in denial with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

Abigail is an American with an American mother and a Chilean father, she’s lived the best part of her life in Germany and was partly brought up by her homosexual step dad and babysat by many of his partners.

With humour throughout the performance, the true story here is a daughter outing a terrible mother who was only interested in herself. You get a genuine sense of Abigail’s struggle through life, her longing to have motherly love, a mother like everyone else’s, she’s used to a life where insults were normal and compliments were unheard of.
Abigail explains her school teacher was a better mother to her than her own, how the family line of those abused can become abusers and how her mum staged a burglary to teach her daughter a lesson.

The story continues as does the mental abuse. When Abigail decided to stay away, her mother still needed to control her, fabricating serious illness in an attempt to get her daughter to come running home defies belief.

Many years later the demise of Abigail’s mother is portrayed and her father reaches out to her to reconnect, they meet up and although there is some blame, they both agree on the reason for how their lives turned out.

Despite the background story, it’s evident Abigail has came through the experience a stronger person, a bubbly soul searching performance that makes you laugh but grips the heart strings at the same time.

****
Reviewed by Steve
Greenside, Riddles Court.
18.35 (1hr)
Until 26 Aug