The well-trodden phrase “do not speak ill of the dead” is one which has been long accepted since the times of Ancient Greece. It’s an aphorism which Fern, a cynical civil celebrant, has lived by for many years, until the mother of a man she is charged with eulogising sets her off down a rabbit-hole of discoveries.
Amy Conway’s one-woman performance is a fascinating exploration of grief, guilt and repressed fury. On a stage set barely with a wooden podium and a full-sized casket, the piece charts Fern’s anxieties and inner torment as she wrestles with her burgeoning knowledge and horror at what her curious persistence uncovers. The stark and unpleasant realities of papering over a life with a façade of cheerful blankness feels as false and awkward as the fixed smiles of indifferent mourners at a wake.
It’s aptly titled as well (a catafalque being the decorative structure or raised platform that a coffin is placed upon during a service) as the entire play is about hiding the grim realities behind functional artistry and performative grief.
The play, however, goes deeper, and it’s here where unfortunately it falters slightly, swinging away from the main narrative into more poetic and abstract moments of reverie, which come somewhat randomly and don’t become wholly clear until almost the end. But in the moment, they feel unprovoked by the text and the surrounding design not quite directing the audience toward them sufficiently. It also feels rather like it loses its way a little, both in terms of narrative and style, in the back half, as things get more muddled. Much of this is assuaged by the ending, which, despite an unexpectedly hard swing into comedy, manages to bind the whole together and narrowly sidestep what could have been a laughter-provoking moment by sheer weight of emotional rawness and believability on Conway’s part.
It’s a play that will resonate massively with many, despite a few teething issues and choices, and asks some fascinating questions.