Review: A MOTHER'S SONG, Macrobert Arts Centre

Scotland's folk songs have reached many corners of the globe. The story of some of those ballads and those who may have carried them is told in the new folk musical, A Mother's Song, created by Finn Anderson and Tania Azevedo. Beginning life in 2017, the show is being fully staged for the first time at the Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling.

We follow a handful of women, separated by centuries, but linked by folk songs taught to them as children. The show explores womanhood and motherhood, the choices that come with those paths, and it centres around Sarah and Alix, a queer couple living in New York.

Sarah has been putting off going through a box left to her by her estranged Aunt Betty. She is led on a musical journey through memories past, and of those who came before her, which turns her world upside down. With a folk-tinged score, the story jumps back and forth through time as we follow the fates of Sarah, Cait and Jean on a journey from Scotland, to Ultser, to America.

Bethany Tennick plays Sarah with charming stubbornness and heart, as she tries to settle on what she really wants in life; Kirsty Findlay is captivating and devastating as Cait, a conflicted pastor's wife; and Blythe Jandoo is endearing as hope-filled Jean, the adventurer.

Melanie Bell gives a soul-filled performance as Aunt Betty; Tinashe Warikandwa is sincere as Alix and also transforms into multiple characters across the timelines along with Craig Hunter who sensitively navigates playing a number male figures in the show.

It's great to see the four-piece band (under the direction of Shonagh Murray) on stage underscoring the narrative - complete with body percussion! Anderson's score is rhythmically interesting with soaring vocal harmonies and explosions of joy and grief conveyed through honest and sincere lyrics.

The women's stories and the jumps through time are seamlessly woven together, with powerful mirrored and opposing narratives. Although it made sense to take the story to the point where it was paused for the interval, some small trims to the last few numbers in Act I would finetune the pacing of the show.

Emma Bailey's costume design roots the characters in their respective time periods and her massive metal-framed set creates suggestions of ships, slick city apartments and claustrophobic cottages - however the odd scene change could be better navigated on stage.

Lindsay McAllister's choreography captures the angst of the characters, and it wouldn't be a show (partially) set in Scotland without a bit of ceilidh dancing! Simon Wilkinson's lighting creates powerful pulses of light, particularly in the opening and closing sequences.

The debate on a woman's right to choose never seems to go away. A Mother's Song is the perfect springboard for honest conversations about what it means to be truly free. This show adds to the slowly-filling gap of women- and queer-centred stories in the musical theatre canon and is an exciting and timely piece, which I hope has a life beyond its short run in Stirling.

A Mother's Song at the Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling until Sunday 26 February

Photography credit: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

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