Consumed - Traverse Theatre - Edinburgh Fringe Review

Four generations of women gather for the birthday party of great grandmother Eileen in Northern Ireland, sounds simple enough. But with Granddaughter Jenny and her daughter Muireann returning to the home after leaving for London a number of years before, and both Jenny’s husband and father being mysteriously absent from the party, family drama and unfolding secrecy is pushed to the extreme in this tense and thrilling exploration of generational trauma.

‘Consumed’, written by Karis Kelly and produced by Paines Plough, called the Traverse Theatre home with Lily Arnold’s seemingly fully functional kitchen set becoming a hot bed of activity and friction. Julia Dearden’s Eileen is having a birthday party, and her daughter Gilly, played by Andrea Irvine, wants it to go perfectly, but there’s a tension hanging in the air. As her daughter Jenny (Caoimhe Farren) and her daughter Muireann (Muireann Ní Fhaogáin) arrives from London, questions about why they chose to leave Northern Ireland, the whereabouts of both husbands, parenting techniques, work habits and eating habits arise.

Eileen and, to an extent, Gilly are stuck in their ways; a stubborn pride in being Northern Irish and a slight looking down on those without such pride, a dig to Jenny for moving her and Muireann away and on a deeper level, a suck it up and deal with it refusal to bring up issues from the past. Jenny is, in a way, the middle generation, balancing between habit of being a work obsessed success woman, and the gentle parenting talk it all out mother in response to her daughter’s struggles with food. Muireann is the one who says it all how it is, referencing climate change and mental health struggles, desperate to make herself heard over the older bigger voices around her who try to brush their issues aside.

Each woman here has their own story, their own struggles, and throughout the hour and 20-minute running time, each story is told, spiralling in a whirlwind of jaw dropping revelations and harsh truths. There are skeletons in the closet to be exposed, questions to be answered and each secret is a spark that both pushes each generation of woman further into desperation and gut punches the audience.

The title ‘Consumed’ could have many meanings. Each women could be seen has being consumed by their own secrets, own guilt, own habits of burying past troubles and issues. They could be consumed by their own greed, their own desire to one up each other with each’s hardships and struggles, or it could be taken literally in reference to Muireann’s eating issues, as in a lack of consumption. It’s up the audience to decide on this. This deep diving, dramatic exploration of generational trauma picks apart the idea that such trauma can be passed down the generation just as much as genetics themselves; the hiding of secrets in past generations can directly influence the habits and mental health of later ones perhaps, and all of this is cleverly wrapped up in a drama that leaves you hanging on every word.

Whilst the overbearing sense of this production is drama, worry and secrecy, there is laughter that bursts through. Most of which comes in the form of Julia Dearden’s great grandmother Eileen, with her sudden, witty outbursts breaking the tension at moments throughout, giving the characters thinking time and the audience a moment to catch their breaths.

Lily Arnold’s set becomes a character in itself, and throughout the production, you can’t quite escape the slight feeling of this being a ghost story. Lights flicker and the house creaks as secrets begin to unravel as the room itself reacts to each brutal and shocking truth, and you find yourself thinking that a spirit is lingering in the shadows. But, perhaps, it’s not a literal ghost, but the ghosts of the past coming out in each secret, each buried issue reaching out into the present.  It is all very clever and engaging, keeping the audience on their toes and guessing of what each character could be hiding behind their polished exteriors.

A lot of difficult topics are covered here, including eating disorders, death, suicide, mental illness, alcoholism, familial abuse and the impact and trauma of Irish and Northern Irish history. Whilst it all may have been a little heavy 10am on day 7 of the fringe for me, it was all handled with a great skill and understanding, being expertly woven into the story and portrayed with care.

‘Consumed’ is a gut-punching family drama that takes the idea of generational trauma and runs with it to high octane extreme levels. Secret after secret, truths that run deep and impact everyone down the generations, leaving the audience gasping as the four powerful women on stage give a masterclass in dramatic performance.

Following its run at the Edinburgh Fringe, ‘Consumed’ heads out on tour visiting Coventry, Leeds, Guildford and Sheffield.