How do you repent an action that has ripped up someone’s life entirely? Carey Crim’s gut-wrenching play is a visceral interrogation of the lasting effects and consequences of rape. Weighty and forceful, it asks how life can continue after panoramic trauma.
The interracial lesbian couple, Allison (Flora Montgomery) and Nadine (Amanda Bright) have successfully given Allison’s 20-year-old daughter, Eleanor (Meaghan Martin), the happiest possible childhood. But, now she’s announced her desire to find her father, their attempts to navigate the difficulties of parenting are set to come unwound. Long protesting that Eleanor was a product of a one-night-stand, and her only sexual experience with a man, Allison is forced to acknowledge head-on the years of suffering she has secreted.
Montgomery gives a seismic performance as Allison. Sustaining a balance of composure and agony, after a half-hearted explanation from Eleanor’s father where he reasons he was “too drunk” to remember the events of a college frat party, she spits back that he raped her. Not once doubting his culpability, the audience shares her tears as she comes face to face with him for the first time.
Despite a stretched-out beginning, once Eleanor’s father’s identity has been revealed, it hangs, dominant over the drama. Directed by Katharine Farmer, the stillness of the early home scenes knot into manic disintegration. Mid-panic attack Eleanor begins to question her existence; “Did you ever regret having me?” she breathes.
Her mother’s response: “Never, not once,” closes the brutal 90 minutes. Left with questions over the shape of this family’s future, as the three women circle each other we are given hope they’ll find a way to survive.
• Never Not Once is at the Park, London, until 5 March.
• In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
