MCH | BLANK

Official website for Mark C. Hewitt & Blank Productions

My Mother's Laugh
2015

Written by Leah Roshinsky
Performed by Eleanor Buchan
Directed by Mark C. Hewitt


“Late at night, over thirty years ago, a beautiful young woman was driving north up the A41 Edgware Way. It was dark and it was raining, her car was old and the tyres were bald. Possibly she was speeding. For reasons unknown, she drove the car with great force into a lamppost on the central reservation ... She died in hospital three hours later."

Why did it happen? Who was this mother? What pressures was she under? From a few half-discovered clues and untrustworthy disclosures, her youngest daughter tries to piece together clues about the mother she lost but never knew and the secret lives and grief of a North London Jewish family.

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Production photo © Josh Pulman, 2015

Rehearsed readings
15th Oct, 2015: JW3 (Jewish Cultural Centre), Camden, London
29th Nov 2015: All Saints Centre, Lewes, East Sussex (hosted by Lewes Live Literature)

From a review in Sussex Jewish News
"... a woman, past her youth, in various states of inebriation, fantasises about the mother she never knew. ... although there was a lot of movement, fluttering hands, standing up and sitting down, fiddling with props, none of it felt over the top or artificial. I don't know how much was due to the actor and how much to the director, but from the exceptional result we may presume it was a healthy co-operation. … One woman, a table, a chair. a bottle, a glass and a radio result in a breathtaking hour and a half. For me, reading it most certainly added a layer or two to the text. For those who hadn't the whole might have been a bit shocking, both the intensity of text and the performance." (Josephine Spiegel)

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Image by Dany Louise