Nikol Kollars has created a powerful piece examining grief, misinformation in a emotional raw performance – but tonally can feel a bit all over the place.
How do you honour someone who play a strong part in their own death? This is a painful and powerful question that lies at the heart of Nikol Kollars’s Fickle Eulogy, which takes us back to the pain and suffering of COVID times and the level of misinformation that was flying around at that time.
At centre of this play, we follow Ann is attempting to write her eulogy for the funeral (or celebration of life as it is described here) of her mother Sue who sadly passed away from COVID, having learnt too late the misinformation that she believed meant she could have avoided her own death. As Ann recounts her own memories of her mother and struggles with her anger and despair as to how Sue’s life came to an end far too soon, there is a real rawness and emotional conflict that is on display from start to finish that keeps the audience thoroughly invested. Sadly Ann and Sue’s story is probably not the only one of its kind.
In the writing Kollar has created a deeply personal and relatable show that ensures the audience can sympathise with both Ann and Sue – there is plenty of love and devastation on display. But it doesn’t feel as though it goes into enough depth as to why Sue felt the need to distrust doctors and the medical profession and how she ended up believing the misinformation that was flying around – yet the final moments in the play packs a quiet yet powerful punch.
Equally, while it is understandable that Ann’s emotions would be all over the place, it does mean that the play itself flies from topic to topic too much feeling increasingly disorientating and just needs a little more focus and room to develop further. Yet there is great potential to be found throughout.
Director Javier Galitó-Cava ensures that the intensity and focus is pitch perfect from start to finish, with the use of lighting really haunting and enhancing the sense of intimacy to the storytelling. The use of props is interesting, adding touches of colour and flair to bring a certain sharpness to particular moments in which Ann’s anger is particularly palpable or at the end a sense of sadness of what she has lost.
The use of sound (the way in which Alexa’s monotone voice is used is particularly effective) makes the audience feel like they are lost in Ann’s memories and her life as she struggles to cope to deal with the loss of her mum. The video design is also powerfully used – the last text message that she sent her mum, followed by a montage of photographs knows how to pack a punch on the audience’s emotions.
The performance from Kollar herself, bringing Ann’s story to life with great passion is extremely well done – but it must be emotionally draining to have to consistently switch tone and mood at a split second. But as much anger and sorrow that forms a large part of the character’s state of mind, there is also a bittersweetness to it as she recounts some memories of the mother and daughter relationship that feels particularly poignant.
Overall, Fickle Eulogy has a strong potential with room to grow and deepen further. It just needs to turn down the franticness slightly to make it a little more tonally balanced.
By Emma Clarendon
Fickle Eulogy was performing as part of Camden Fringe.
Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️