Review: Kin at HOME is ‘a dark comedy that twists through family secrets and grief’

HER Productions is proving to be a powerful force in the industry, bringing innovative new writing and reimagined Shakespeare to the stage, engaging local communities, and providing mentorship opportunities for aspiring arts professionals.

Their evening of short plays Vignettes always offers an evening rich with variety, ambition and high-quality mini productions.

What’s more, you can always spot emerging talent in these pieces.

Christine Mackie who has written for Vignettes and played King Lear recently at the Hope Mill Theatre, is on writing duties for this twisty dark comedy which focuses on the aftermath of a funeral.

Kin at HOME

Representation is everything here, and seeing a play featuring two middle-aged female characters, directed and written by a woman and produced by women is quite something. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

And this is reflected within the audience, as women have come to see themselves on stage and behind the stage.

The tagline is: Now he’s gone, it’s time to talk. So we eavesdrop on two characters, as they navigate their loss. Kerry Wilson-Parry (Steph) and Roberta Kerr (Kay) play a grieving sister and wife, who come together following the death of Robert.

He was a proud man; a protector and kept things going behind the scenes. Or did he? Director Sue Jenkins places you in the lounge, waiting to see where we are headed next.

Revelations, secrets and lies

This is one of those plays where nothing or no one is what they seem. Revelations and secrets and lies, stack up like Donald Trump’s use of repetition. Rinse and repeat.

In the first half these twists work, as you can hear audible gasps from the audience, and there is some delight in seeing this middle-class house of cards collapse, right before your very eyes.

And there are some witty lines and Kerry Wilson-Parry’s Steph relishes these and delivers with panache. Her character is a cat on a hot tin roof, moving around, not settling, bringing trouble and debt to the front door.

And as the secrets spill, we find out why.

Roberta Kerr’s Kay is the opposite, she had a career trajectory to follow and she offers stability and roots. But both characters share a connection with Robert, who we never see in flashbacks.

But we hear about different versions of him, as they discuss him as the husband and brother, offering each other surprises and shocks.

As a character, Steph has a past and this is explored. But Kay is really a cypher, as everything that takes place is being ‘done to her.’ She ends up becoming a plot device, as a result.

Considering that everything she knew now resembles quicksand, she flips flops from “Get out of my house” to “Stay with me” and she seems too easily persuaded and gullible and therefore she does not feel real.

Tracy Letts’ highly acclaimed play August Osage County treads the path of grief and hidden selves, and does so with dark wit and many of his characters are cruel and unlikable. But their actions are always believable.

With Kin, when you decide to include a myriad of twists into a play on this scale, it may excite and leave a few members of the gasping but it also begins to undermine the reality. Deaths of characters are explored and things are not what they seem.

If Joan Collins was uttering some of these plot developments in an old episode of the hit super soap Dynasty, I could buy it. But within this middle-class home owned by an intelligent and well-educated woman, some of these developments start to become pure hokum.

Credibility is stretched to such an extent, that one final twist feels like witnessing Boris Johnson announced as Minister for Truth.

Tickets for Kin at HOME

If you like plays which twist and turn and take you in so many different directions, you feel quite dizzy, this play might work for you. Just don’t expect to believe all of it.

Kin is at HOME until 2nd November and can be booked here