When It Happens to You ★★★★ Park Theatre | Jul 31 - Aug 31, 2024


When the daughter of writer, Tawni O'Dell, was the victim of a sexual assault, the horrific crime was not simply devastating for the victim. It affected all the members of the family, forcing them to face the real depths of the family's dysfunction and bringing out secrets that had long festered beneath the surface of their interactions. O'Dell's memoir of this real event is now dramatised with Amanda Abbington playing the buttoned-down O'Dell who rages on the inside, but who gives the socially expected responses when confronted by her daughter's rape. This is the way she deals with trauma, and despite some doubts, the way she has raised her children to get through it. But, the mother's coping mechanisms don't work for daughter, Esme, played by Rosie Day who descends into a self-destructive spiral that eventually forces her mother to re-evaluate her own manner of navigating through life. When It Happens to You is a powerful piece of writing that is searingly staged. Abbington brings her A-game to the role of Tara, and her unravelling is nicely nuanced. Day puts in an equally convincing performance as the tormented Esme who alternates between wanting her mother's comfort and bitterly rejecting it. In contrast, Connor, the cerebral and charming son and brother of this duo, chooses to lose himself in a world of mathematical abstraction. Played by Miles Molan, he ironically comes across as the most unaffected member of the clan, while, perhaps, employing the mechanism of repression that so egregiously fails his mother and sister. After seeking psychiatric help, O'Dell determined that a method of gaining perspective and dealing with the crisis of this event might be to write about it. This sharing of her catharsis makes for moving theatre which highlights the complex and far-reaching effects of an event like rape which victimises the whole community.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Mark Douet

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