Keep mum about plot lines

This is one of those aimless plays that wander around picking up more and more plot lines. But nothing is fully developed. No strand of plot is brought into a satisfyingly coherent relationship with another.

Author Courttia Newland is a highly-regarded black novelist who now writes plays. His Mother's Day ought not, therefore, leave an audience so far groping in the dark. Is the play about the problems of working-class black marriage, or the irrationality and hypocrisy of race hatred? Or is Newland comparing the aspirations of young black and white working-class women? Perhaps it's all an outline for a dated TV soap opera.

The title itself raises problems, since it alludes to only one mother, though two put in significant appearances. The first, Carol Moses's perky, loud-mouthed Juanita, launches the evening with confessional autobiography. On stage, the other characters sit around waiting for the narrative baton to pass to them. This handsome, working-class girl briskly charts an early adult life that's neither exceptional nor interesting until she decides to leave infant son, Davey, and mild-mannered husband, Benny, who turns wild when her brilliant career as the local cannabis dealer is revealed.

Newland offers no explanation of how Juanita casually jettisons maternal responsibilities or how she fares before reappearing 10 years later. Instead, the spotlight passes to Benny, with scenes from his born-again, happy life with garage cashier, Linda, and her autistic son. The soap-operatic plotting ranges wildly from scenes of idyllic domesticity to racist menace involving Linda's brother, Roy, who lives with a girl claiming to be South American. Benny's death brings few to the funeral festivities, apart from Juanita, whose brief re-encounter with her teenage son, Davey, and Roy leaves vital questions hanging in the air.

As if weary of these desultory episodes, Newland introduces an authoritarian housing official and mysteriously establishes Juanita as the conduit for a happy ending. Riggs O'Hara's spirited production is fortified by Sasha Oakley's Linda and Dominick Golding's belligerent Roy. Carol Moses's swaggering charm as Juanita is counterpointed by record-breaking rugby player, Martin Offiah, who makes his own record by being the first of his sporting kind to debut on the professional stage and, in the process, make a cool, natural and convincingly violent Benny.

Mother's Day