Father, Away She Goes review

Father, Away She Goes, is a funny, and in many unfortunate ways, a painfully relatable production. Performed at "Pickle Studio at Greenside @ Riddles Court" the play follows Sarah, a rather insufferable art school reject. Sarah is coded as slightly vulgar, middle-class, and is a character which I dare say satirises fringe performers and audiences alike. She is messy and unmotivated, she seemingly presides over the breakdown of relationships both with her life-long friend, and with her own mother. As the play unfolds, we learn the horror of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father as a teenager. 

Father, Away She Goes, is a one woman play conceived by Electra Kolb. Kolb puts in a real tour-de-force performance, holding the complete attention of the room for the entire duration of the show. On occasion she will interact more directly with audience members, and I think when considering the small space in which the production currently takes place, leaning into the more convivial elements of the show would be to its benefit. 

The play is really pretty humourous (at least early on). It pokes fun and makes jokes involving everyone from Damien Hirst to Adolf Hitler, and even blind autistic kids. Although I do think as a general rule, society needs to chill out with autism jokes, such a good job is done here of making Sarah both authentic and unlikable.

Sarah goes on talking about her life in much a similar, light-hearted vein. But then, in this whiplash turn of events, we see depicted a scene of sexual assault, suffered at the age of thirteen. A truly harrowing moment. The cynic in me wondered, at first, if this scene felt a little quickly shoe-horned in. However, it was immensely effective - not just because of the shock factor - but as you suddenly have to grapple with this whole new facet to Sarah’s character. One moment we are almost near to hating this character and now, feeling the deepest of sympathies - it is this dialectic that the audience has to resolve. 

I find very often that works depicting sexual assault, all too often depict the victim to be some kind of angel, with her whole life ahead of her (and it is, almost always, her), and that this perfect life trajectory is destroyed by a single event. These kind of depictions I feel dampen relatability. It is so refreshing to see a story like Father, Away She Goes, when the victim is so deeply flawed, because we are all flawed. We are lazy. We are mean to our friends and family. We hold prejudices. I am pleased that a story as tangible as this is being told. In addition to this, we are left asking the question: is Sarah the way she is because of what she has been through, or is her anti-social behaviour just adjacent to her experiences? 

In the face of a significant trauma, one has to grapple with the degree to which it forms part of, or rather mutates, identity. In the case of Sarah, it is her relationships, and her art which are impacted. It is only when confronting and dealing with the trauma through her art does she actually get to a point where she flourishes creatively. She learns to create with authenticity - or at least we hope, as her own cynicism towards "backstory art" persists. 

Father, Away She Goes really leans into a much murkier and blurry depiction of abuse, tackling  those more complicated feelings towards an abuser - be it hatred, jealousy, or even at times, love - with a real understanding. I found the play incredibly moving at times. This feels like a play that should ascend to the heights of the Edinburgh Fringe canon (if there is such a thing) alongside the likes of Waller-Bridge et al. Father, Away She Goes is an exceedingly strong Fringe entry - and for the right audience is a must-see. ★★★★☆

Thank you to Electra Kolb for inviting me. Tickets were provided free of charge and I was given full control over the content of the review.