The Memory of Water

"The Memory of Water" is playwright Shelagh Stephenson's first stage play, staged at Hampstead Theatre in 1996. The play won Best Comedy at the Laurence Olivier Awards. [cite web|title= Oliviers: Olivier Winners 2000 |publisher= Official London Theatre Guide |url= http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/olivier_awards/view/item98535/Olivier-Winners-2000/ |accessdate= 2008-07-31] It was filmed as "Before You Go" in 2002. [cite web |title= Before You Go (2002) |publisher= Imdb |url= http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0288623/ |accessdate= 2008-07-31]

Three sisters; Teresa, Mary and Catherine, come together before their mother's celebration that she is dead, each haunted by their own demons; in which the play focuses more on each of how each sister deals with the death and how it directly affects them.The three each have different memories of the same events, causing constant bickering about whose memories are true. As the three women get together after years of separation, all their hidden lies and self-betrayals are about to reach the surface.

A theme of the play is, eponymously, memory. The sister's memories interact with each other, and show that despite synchronicites of time and place they cannot agree upon one unifying experience. This is echoed in Vi's final speech, which portrays Alzheimer's disease as being adrift among a series of islands of your own identity. The sisters drift around their own islands of memory, unable to agree on one particular point, and yet are unified by their familial bond (Vi comments that, "some things stay in your bones").

The play exhibits the trinities of time, place and character present in a tragedy, as the play seems to take place at one time, in one space and without change in the character's outlooks. However, because comedy is so often interspersed with the tragic it cannot be classified solely as tragedy.

Characters

Mary

Mary is the middle sister and a doctor whose five-year affair with Mike, a married doctor, is starting to show strain. She experiences a series of interactions with her mother's ghost, whereupon she discusses memory and their relationship. The audience is unsure whether the other sisters are privy to this relationship, as it is hinted that Vi visits all of them. Mary had a child at fourteen that she gave up (named Patrick) and this comes to light later in the play. Her life revolves around creating a memory of him, which she divests into a coma patient suffering from amnesia in which she is treating (imagining that he is Patrick, and if she can wake him she can awaken her own son from their estrangement. Patrick is dead, but Teresa has hidden this news from her sister, as it seems it is the most contentious issue for the family and its upholding of family pride. When Mary discovers Patrick is dead, it proves both healing and problematic for the sisters. She also fakes a pregnancy to gauge her lover's reaction.

Teresa

Teresa is the eldest sister and an unhappy housewife, who runs a health food supplement store with her husband Frank, and who feels she has had to keep the family together for years. She assumes much of the responsibility for the funeral arrangements and her mother's care once deterioration into Alzheimer's commences. It is clear that she feels both resentful and protective of her younger siblings. She met her husband by whittling down responses she received to a singles advert, believing this to be the best way of finding her future partner, but both her and Frank discovered that they were not as they had described themselves.

Catherine

Catherine is the youngest sister, and the only sister who does not have a spouse, whilst Mary's and Teresa's partners make an appearance at the funeral preparations. The youngest daughter Catherine is permanently trying to catch her sister's attention and feels she was always left out, even in childhood, and even now is unaware of Mary's son. Her sisters remain dismissive of her current romantic attachment as Catherine changes her lovers regularly, (it is indicated that this is not necessarily her own choice) and is fairly self obsessed. She enters loaded with shopping bags, and appears to have a limited attention span as her topics of conversation permanently alter. She offers marijuana to the guests, which Teresa accepts, and indulges in drinking with her sisters; though she seems to be the most rebellious sister.Catherine is the most lively of the three sisters. she has a vivid imagination but is more similar to her siblings than she realises. she seeks attention claiming that she never had the same as her sisters growing up. throughout the play she does not hesitate to say so either.

Notes

References

*cite web |title= Contemporary Writers - Shelagh Stephenson |publisher= British Council |url= http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth02D8K143012627397 |accessdate= 2008-07-31
*cite web |last=Thompson |first= Helen |date= May 31, 2004 |title= The Memory of Water (review) |publisher= The Age |url= http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/28/1085641703664.html |accessdate= 2008-07-31