Forget Me Not
Gerry is almost 60, and he is going to meet his mother for the first time since he was three. The old lady lives somewhere in the UK. Liverpool, according to the records. So Gerry is going there to find out what made him who he is.
Tom Holloway’s gem of a play started life as a conversation between Belvoir and Liverpool’s Everyman and Playhouse Theatres. Holloway’s task was to tell the story of the 3,000+ British children who, between 1945 and 1968, were told they were orphans and sent to Australia on a promise of warmth, fresh air, abundant food and boundless opportunity. Instead they arrived to deprived institutions where neglect and abuse were the norm.
Holloway’s brilliant leap of imagination has been to set this story not at its outset half a century ago, but here and now. He has written a series of raw, often achingly beautiful conversations between members of a scattered family. Drawing the whole thing together is Gerry’s extraordinary, precarious bid to finally learn what it means to love and belong to a family.Awards
Nominations
Helpmann Awards - Best Lead Actor in a Play - Colin Moody
Reviews
“There’s an absence of superfluous directorial noise from Anthea Williams. With a sensitivity to text one would expect of Belvoir’s literary manager, she places her full trust in story, clearing Dan Potra’s miniature set of clutter and allowing performers and audience alike the room to exhale. Williams’ generous direction also highlights the strength of Moody’s performance”
Somewhere in the second half of Forget Me Not, the play, so small on stage but so vital, solid at first and good, it becomes something more than you thought it could ever be, and it is absolutely arresting. You won’t be able to look away. One of the finest pieces of writing currently on Sydney stages, remarkably acted and honest, it is one of the best plays of the year.
“A small masterpiece from the frontline of humanity”
Time Out *****
There’s an awkward, eloquent silence to Tom Holloway’s Forget Me Not. It’s one of the finest Belvoir St Theatre productions in quite some time…Williams and cast bring a rare, collective empathy to Holloway’s play. They’re all on the same page. All the time. It’s almost as if they’d written it. It lingers and pauses. It hovers and hangs. It menaces and agitates…this director stakes everything on the audience’s capacity to think and feel, as much as the playwright’s. She deploys a feather, where some might’ve wielded a sledgehammer. It shows faith in herself. And her audience.
Credits
Director - Anthea Williams
Set & Costume Designer - Dan Potra
Lighting Designer - Matthew Marshall
Composer & Sound Designer - Stephan Gregory
Cast
Mandy McElhinney
Colin Moody
Eileen O’Brien
Oscar Redding
Images by Lisa Tomasetti