Bill MacIlwraith’s The Anniversary

Through sheer coincidence, I seem to have been involved with several notable anniversaries at the Talisman. I directed the theatre’s 500th production, and edited the 400th issue of the Talismag. And now I find myself at the helm of our first play to open in the year 2000 – called, appropriately enough, The Anniversary.

Bill MacIlwraith’s gloriously black comedy is set during the annual celebration held to remember Mum and Dad’s wedding day. Dad has long since died ("to get a bit of peace"), but Mum still holds doggedly to the ritual as one more weapon in the armoury of control tactics she uses to rule her three sons, who work for the family builders’ business. Henry, the eldest, is quiet and reclusive with an "idiosyncrasy" that could prove, quite literally, his undoing; Terry is planning to emigrate to Canada but is too terrified of Mum to tell her; and the youngest, Tom, is willing to exploit those he loves in order to beat Mum at her own game. Terry’s wife, Karen, and Tom’s fiancée Shirley are the women who present the only real threat to Mum’s dominance, for they can stand up to her in ways that no man could. But Mum is determined that none of them will get the better of her, and she uses threats, bribery and far worse to keep her family together.

There is an uncomfortable truth underpinning this extraordinary play, which is that motherly affection all too often comes at a price. Most of us will tolerate a mother who uses a little emotional blackmail from time to time, or who shows thinly disguised dissatisfaction with our choice of partner, because we recognise these as demonstrations of love, even if it’s a little over-protective. Bill MacIlwraith shows us how suffocating this maternal influence can be, but with a neat twist; for Mum in the play is motivated not by love but by malevolence – by the sheer enjoyment of manipulating the lives of others. As he says in the introduction to the text, "I have purposely used a farcical technique, not in order to make the play more palatable to an audience, but in the belief that through laughter a facet of family truth can be accepted without the loss of sanity."

The play was first performed in 1966, and we are keeping our production firmly in that period, which is making life interesting for set designer Bob Teers, Sue Teers in the props room and Penny Holloway who is searching for sixties fashions. The cast features Audrie Lawson on top form as the mother from hell, with David Bennett, Neil Monro-Davies and Matt Sutherland as her sons and Gillian Halford and Katherine Courts as the women who threaten her superiority.

Come and see the play. It may make you glad of your own families, it might even shock you, but I guarantee it will make you laugh.

(From the Talismag, February 2000)