A searing portrait of a father’s pain
ALL THE pleasure, pride and pain of paternity are packed into this 45-minutelong monologue as a young father deals with the sudden and appalling disability of a beloved daughter. This “therapy”, one suspects, comes partly from his ability to articulate the gamut of his diverse feelings, from the moment he learns of his child’s conception up to her 10th birthday (the date on which this one-hander begins) – and partly from sharing those feelings with his audience.
Therapy throbs with the authenticity of a true life experience, and as such has the power to move its spectators more deeply than the impersonal narrative of a man’s domestic tragedy.
Honono brings an engaging personality to his role as well as considerable acting ability, a mobile face and eloquent body language.
He not only portrays the father, but takes on a variety of supporting personae: the wife, the baby, in-laws and others encountered along his journey.
His gift for conveying a range of emotions is impressive and convincing – romantic love, passion, joy at the prospect of fatherhood, pride in the beauty of his newborn child and the ambitious plans for her perfect future, then incredulity, fury, and despair on learning of her disablement.
Performing barefoot adds visually to his vulnerability; his only props are a folding chair that proves highly versatile in the course of the evening, and a sad-eyed giant teddy bear whose floppy limbs evoke the helplessness of a young child. The identity of this soft toy has many a shift before the tale is told, and the bear’s function is more that of a puppet than a prop.
Transcending the intimate, human story of a man and his family is the bleak view of an uncaring society, where the poor and humble are treated with dismissive callousness by the system.
Extending beyond this implicit critique is the most important message of the work, namely that love conquers everything and can be a redemptive force in surmounting the darkest misery… the best therapy of all.