Review: FATHERLAND, Hampstead Theatre

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Nancy Farino’s Fatherland is a play about trying to get out of the cold. It’s a thoughtful piece of new writing about attempting to reconnect when you feel you’ve been shut out. It follows Winston (Jason Thorpe), a terminal try-er with a fondness for starting (but not finishing) new projects, as he flees a lawsuit via a spontaneous road trip to his newfound homeland of County Mayo. He picks up his daughter Joy (Farino) en route, so they might reconnect with their history and each other.

Fear of cold runs through the play like frostbite, in Joy’s recounted dreams of ice monsters, in the threat of a storm looming over the renovated bus Winston doggedly pushes on towards Ireland, and in the literal snow that drops over the actors at intervals through the 1-hour-40 runtime. In scenes where Winston must confront his lawyer (Shona Babayemi) about his legal trouble, Christopher Nairne employs migraine-inducing strip-lighting. On the bus, in the incubator of the father-daughter dynamic, Nairne opts for red, putting intensity and heat into stilted conversation. The play’s resolution is the only scene lit warmly, making the audience breathe a sigh of relief at having been allowed a reprieve from the chill.

Designers Tess Walker and Debbie Duru have done a lot with a little. The thrust stage lays out the shape of the old school bus for the audience, and the characters whizz around its confines on wheely chairs, transitioning from road trip to legal interrogation with ease. It can make the narrative feel a little repetitive, but the three performers work the space well enough that it avoids feeling too static.

Thorpe’s Winston is charismatic enough to offset his objective awfulness as a father. Farino’s Joy is vulnerable, if whiny, and she performs with real heart. Babayemi’s Claire is a pleasantly grounding counterbalance to Winston, upright but with believable conviction, as we see glimpses of her character under the lawyer archetype she may initially appear to be.

The production has several interesting conceptual strands that don’t necessarily weave together easily. It feels as if there are a lot of brilliant ideas struggling to find airtime in a play that’s trying to say all of it at once. There is a pleasantly surprising amount of humour, landing well with an audience happy to have a break from the emotional tension, and the drama feels real and earned, although perhaps not comprehensively tackled in this single-act production.

Chilly yet charming.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Oli Burgin

Fatherland plays at London’s Hampstead Theatre until 29 November, with further info here.