DEAD MOM PLAY
Union Theatre
★★★
“Though it could really sing with some further consideration, Ben Blais has certainly shown us something very real”
Theatrical musings about death and grief abound, but one thing has become incredibly clear — audiences will always buy into them. Grief, after all, is a universal experience that we long to share, while rarely feeling that we can. And so, theatre provides some small form of catharsis, allowing us to process our own emotions on the subject via proxy. Ben Blais, who serves as both writer and director here, seeks to provide that catharsis through an ambitious blend of sincerity, comedy, and straight-up chaos — but it’s clear that the work still needs a bit of polish.
When we meet Charlie (Griffyn Bellah) and his dying mother (Hannah Harquart), it is via a strange, often difficult to follow call-and-response duologue that goes on just a bit too long. We are soon introduced to Death (Joseph Bellis), posing as a newly moved-in neighbour, who wishes to spend some time with Charlie’s mom… presumably to take her away and end her suffering. What follows is a series of vignettes where Charlie finds any possible way to avoid what is happening right before his eyes. He can’t bring himself to face the horrific things that are happening to his mother’s decaying body — he describes the sights and the smells in quite visceral detail — but he can’t quite let go either. He entreats Death for more time, chases Death off time and again, but also berates Death for allowing her to suffer so much. The internal conflict is gorgeously played out by Bellah and reflects the very real complexity of grief.
But there are spaces here for improvement. A short section of Shakespearean monologue feels a touch like it’s filling space, more than serving a narrative purpose. The lighting design, provided by Jess Brigham, is ethereal and matches the tonal needs of the piece, but the sound hampers the performance at times, causing some lines to be lost in the chaos. A threat of suicide toward the end of the show feels particularly unbalanced, unrooted, and perhaps unearned — though it is threatened with a finger gun, it still feels rather jarring, particularly when followed by another character telling the one with a finger gun pointed at their temple to “try harder”. For a show that deals quite sensitively with other matters of death, it doesn’t seem to have interrogated its relationship with suicide or self-harm very well.
With all that said, the storytelling structure, the book-ends that Blais provides are what really show his promise as a writer. Death has a constant refrain for Charlie throughout the piece — “show me something real”. Though it could really sing with some further consideration, Ben Blais has certainly shown us something very real.
DEAD MOM PLAY
Union Theatre
Reviewed on 15th April 2025
by Stacey Cullen
Photography by Andrew AB
Previously reviewed at this venue:
DUDLEY ROAD | ★★ | January 2025
NOOK | ★★½ | August 2024
WET FEET | ★★★★ | June 2024
THE ESSENCE OF AUDREY | ★★★★ | February 2024
GHOST ON A WIRE | ★★★ | September 2022
