Events Calendar

Northampton, MA. Smith College Department of Theatre presents a workshop production of Deirdre Kinahan’s Moment on February 24-25 and March 1-3 at 8:00 pm in Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre. Directed by Ellen Kaplan, Moment, portrays a family that lives in a fog of denial but can’t escape the explosive “trauma in a teacup” that tears them apart. The play is lightning fast and frighteningly funny; it’s clear-eyed and compassionate, and – like Nial– the play pulls no punches. Moment, written by astonishing Irish playwright Deirdre Kinahan, was a major hit in London last year.

Nial killed 12-year-old Hilary fourteen years and he’s paid for his crime.  He’s finding success: a great career and a beautiful new wife, but his family is shattered by the shame. His Mam, Teresa, dopes herself into a fog of lies, intent on pretending how ‘normal’ they are.  She flutters and babbles on about happy families, acting the part of a naughty kitten when she’s really a drowned cat.  Sister Ciara keeps things afloat, but sister Niamh is determined to destroy Nial’s perfect new life.

Nial and his new wife come for tea.  And in one room on one afternoon, the trauma of a long-buried crime can no longer be contained; we are thrust into the aftermath, we see what comes of taking a life. Why does a boy kill?  Why does a teenager murder his kid sister’s friend?  And how does the boy’s family keep from breaking apart after the ‘worst’ is over?  

Director Ellen W. Kaplan is particularly interested in the ways violence affects everyone it touches. She says of the play, “Each character is put under a microscope and becomes a scaffolding upon which is built an intensely emotional field where the dynamics of the family play out.” Moment is about a family that can’t bear the truth.  It’s taut and bright and funny – we all see ourselves in the loving and hating, the rivalries and grudges, the joys and miseries that go on in family kitchens.  But the barbed ripostes turn vicious, bursting into explosions of rage that expose this family’s complicity in violence.

Moment is car crash theatre, a perfectly crafted play that explores the way we cope with trauma. It looks at how a family carries the burden of guilt as much as does the perpetrator himself.  Inspired by real-life, high profile cases in Britain (Wayne O'Donoghue and Patrick O'Dwyer, among others), the play explores how families operate in a world of denial. “They spin around and pretend that it all hasn't happened,” says playwright Deirdre Kinahan. “(As if…that it is all OK. When it plainly isn't.")  

Do we ever, really, get a second chance?