Susan & Darren moves audiences at Lilian Baylis Studios
Quarantine & Company Fierce’s Susan and Darren is a 90-minute celebration of the bond between a mother and her son. The setting at Lilian Baylis Studio – a darkened room, a wooden dance floor, a single disco ball – foreshadows the gathering yet to come. With half of the audience positioned to face the other half, the air is rich with the anxious anticipation of the guests we’re about to meet. The first are Susan and Darren Pritchard themselves, a 55-year-old housecleaner in a sequinned dress and her live-in 30-year old son. Both are already dancing.
As the music dies down, Darren begins to describe their humble home and thus their lives, from an insignificant Ikea chair to his mum’s special corner. Through conversational and honest dialogue that discusses former boyfriends and nights out in Manchester, the two slowly unpack tender and tragic moments in their family history. By the time friends join in to share memories on video screens, the audience members have become guests in the event. Darren even roams the studio to chat with a few spectators while Susan instructs others to prepare snacks for her upcoming buffet.
With a plot that is purposefully unabashed and sometimes improvised, Darren and Susan entertain with charming normality. Undoubtedly, the best aspect of the performance is experiencing the familiarity between mother and son. As Darren dances in his tracksuit, Susan looks on with maternal admiration. Darren starts in on a humorous anecdote, and Susan interrupts. After Susan recounts personal grief, Darren envelops her in a startlingly intimate embrace. Meanwhile, their confessions are punctuated by dancing, from Darren’s bounds of joy to Susan’s twirls of regret.
The show succeeds in bringing beauty to the mundane, and in the end, after laughing and nodding my head to their favorite Motown tracks, I can’t help but think of my own mother, and consciously hold back tears. Darren and Susan share a final dance, but the party doesn't end there. With the music turned up, the audience approach the dance floor to enjoy the food – and the love – that the performers share with us.
Susan and Darren runs at Lilian Baylis Studio until 15th May
Photo Credit: Gavin Parry
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