A Prayer For Wings
The Kings Head Theatre, 30th Oct - 23rd Nov 2019
In February this year I had the great pleasure of photographing the writer and director of A Prayer For Wings, Sean Mathias, who was at the time directing Martin Sherman’s play Gently Down The Stream. During that commission I was thrilled to spend a couple of hours watching him and the cast of that play do some last minute fine tuning in the rehearsal rooms the week before opening night. His reputation had of course proceeded him as the director of several landmark theatre productions over the years, from such productions as Bent (1989), Waiting for Godot (2009), No Man’s Land (2013) amongst many others. Tonights production of A Prayer for Wings at the Kings Head Theatre however would be the first time I had seen a play he had written as well as directed, and what an absolute treat I, and the rest of the audience at this evenings performance were in for.
I stop myself short of calling the experience an unadulterated joy to watch only because of the sobering subject matter Mathias draws upon, that being the story of Rita (Alis Wyn Davies) who finds her life reduced to taking full time care for her mother (Llinos Daniel), now crippled with multiple sclerosis, leaving Rita’s only pleasure that of doing sexual favours for the ‘filthy boys’ at her local park. Despite this she has remained a virgin and her mother seems hell bent on keeping her that way, even from her sick bed, having herself been left by Rita’s father shortly after giving birth, due it would seem to his weakness “for whisky and blondes”. As the days slowly start to drag by, Rita’s increasing despair at the repetition of her daily routine is matched only by her mothers frustration of having to become increasingly reliant on her daughter, whose independence she is stealing whilst her own continues to decline.
Despite this being a life where the pleasures for both seem few and far between, not to mention modest, Mam's having now been reduced to the addition of some beans to her morning toast, “Make them Heinz, mind!”, Rita manages to hold on to bigger dreams, albeit unlikely to be realised, stuck as she is in a dingy disused church in the small Welsh town of Neath, now the rented home to both her and her sickly mother. It’s an irony not lost on Rita given that her mother had never actually been to Church before, despite the relentless God fearing lectures she seems compelled to give her daughter at almost every possibility.
As a revival of a play first written and performed in 1985, (then directed by actress Joan Plowright), Mathias remains true to his original vision, and alongside plenty of beautifully observed details that roots this drama firmly in the mid-eighties, not least of which being a 1980’s copy of Smash Hits on the otherwise baron dining table, (plus the sexual services that Rita offers the impoverished boys from the recreational ground ranging in price from 50p to five pounds), the core issues that Mathias wants to draw the audiences attention to remain as relevant today as they were then, as anyone who has faced the prospect of caring for an elderly relative will no doubt attest. Not that this needs to be a lived experience in order for anyone to feel sufficiently moved by the plight of these characters diametrically opposing needs, the Mother’s being for her daughter to be forever close whilst the daughter is simultaneously desperate for her independence and freedom.
As grim as Rita and her Mam’s plight sounds, Mathias manages to find room for some comic relief within the situation they find themselves, which helps extend our empathy for both characters whose constant struggle to satisfy their own needs could, in lesser hands, be seen as little more than controlling and selfish. The arrival of Tom (Luke Rhodri), as one of the naive, inexperienced ‘filthy boys’ Rita brings home for a ’50p quickie’ is a prime example of how these tragic and comedic qualities are brought skilfully to life through the combination of Mathias’s writing and the perfectly pitched performances from all three actors. Rhodri returns to the stage twice more in the guise of two more boys from the recreational ground, managing to fully inhabit a different character for each, despite the brevity in the appearance of each.
Lee Newby’s set design is impressive, though the stage layout is somewhat unconventional. It is however another fine example of a Kings Head Theatre production managing to make every inch of the available space count. With Ritas bedroom on one side and her mother’s on the other, the only problem is that with acting of a quality that is on display here, you don’t want to take your eyes off either of the actors impressive performances for a moment, but this becomes unavoidable at times when both take it in turn to share their innermost thoughts in captivatingly confidential asides to the audience, from their opposing ends of the stage.
Whilst this eloquent play can at times be a sobering watch, A Prayer For Wings remains a must see piece of theatre, the accent of the first-class Welsh cast adding an extra layer of lyricism to Mathias’s already beautifully observed dialogue.
★★★★★
