Sydney Reviews

Mistletoe and holly are the traditional botanicals of Christmas, but an olive branch is the favoured flora in Mike Bartlet’s yuletide set play, Snowflake.

Picture this. It’s Christmas Eve. Andy hasn’t heard from his daughter, Maya, in three years. She moved out of her recently widowed dad, cut ties with him and the last time they spoke, it did not end well.

Hearing that she is back in town, Andy hires a church hall, decorates it for Christmas and invites her to a reconciliation. But will she show? For forty -five electric minutes we wait for her as Andy fills us in on details. It’s a mesmeric, comfortable performance by James Lugton.

Then an arrival, not Maya, but Natalie, a stranger to Andy, there on the pretence of picking up some crockery. She then instigates an interrogation of sorts, a bull in a china shop.

And then, finally, Maya, makes her entrance, and the fireworks continue.

With Snowflake, Mike Bartlett, the author of a bunch of splendid scripts that include Albion, King Charles III, and Cock, comes up with another exceptional play, an intimate and bittersweet Christmas story about generational conflict, patriarchy, sexism and racism.

Snowflake was apparently written in response to Brexit, the referendum of 2016 which took effect nigh on five years ago, and it is that separation of the UK from the EU that is the catalyst of the schism between father and daughter.

Just as that political decision created a battle ground between tradition and progress and national identity, Bartlett’s play looks at those issues through the prism of a fractured family and personal identity and how the upheaval of generational differences can be addressed and healed, if only people would listen.

James Lugton as Andy opens the play with a forty-five minute monologue that is worth the price of the ticket. On this solid performance foundation, Lilian Alejandra Valverde as Natalie and Claudia Elbourne as Maya build an outstanding ensemble.

Directed by Jo Bradley, Snowflake is a first class entertainment – engaging, erudite, funny and provocative. A cracker.