We never get to see Vivienne Mavis Taylor in this devised production. She is the Big Aunty of the title and is dead as soon as the play has begun. Her coffin takes centre stage for much of the show, but the world is already moving on.
Absent though she is, she makes her presence felt in the grief, regret and recrimination of the three children she brought up as her own. In their mourning, we sense she was as faultless and flawed as every matriarch before her.
It is her death, far away from Coventry in her native Jamaica, that is the catalyst for some kind of reconciliation. In Corey Campbell’s sweet-natured and impressionistic production, the grownup siblings repeatedly fall into their childhood roles. Only the import of the burial can shake them out of their old ways.
Campbell himself plays Marcus, the taciturn big brother, his physical dominance a shield to keep repressed memories at bay. You can see why Keiren Hamilton-Amos as Shaun, the youngest, should be intimidated by him. Sensitive and insecure, Shaun is inescapably the family fall guy. He has been conditioned to believe he can do nothing right – and there is plenty of evidence to support that opinion.
It takes Alexia McIntosh as big sister Naomi to play peacemaker, gently manoeuvring her brothers into a place they can accommodate the domestic trauma that ripped them apart. Her task is to stop the damage done to them as children defining them as adults.
The 75-minute show – an attempt to explore “how we can find a path to resolution” – covers limited dramatic territory and slips in and out of focus as devised dramas are wont to do. But, supported by a community choir on Claire Winfield’s multipurpose set, it can also be vivid and atmospheric.
Campbell brings to life the raucous partying of a Jamaican nine-night celebration as convincingly as he does the rain-drenched burial when McIntosh leads the company in a languid lament, their vocal harmonies stunning and cathartic.
The three central performances – including funny doubling in the Jamaican crowd scenes – are precise and engaging. But in shape, one funeral is much like another and too little is at stake for this one to feel significant.
At Belgrade theatre, Coventry, until 6 May
