Shelagh Stephenson's play
is a touching, but very funny comedy about three sisters who meet on the eve of their mother’s funeral. As the conflicts of the past converge, everyday lies and tensions reveal the particular patterns and strains of family relationships.
The three sisters, having led disparate lives in adulthood are thrust together at a time of emotional stress. This helps to heighten the tension between the three: Teresa, the eldest, who feels she was left to look after their senile mother whilst the other two lived a life of Reilly; Mary, a doctor who is having a long-term affair with a T.V. celebrity (Will he, won’t he?) and Catherine, the totally mixed-up younger sister whose life is a haze of travel, fast living, drugs, shopping and, of course, men.
This cocktail of personalities is a fertile ground for wryly observed and witty comedy of the highest order. Just to complete the scenario they are visited by Vi, the dead mother, who has her own axe to grind and lends a parental perspective to the proceedings.
All-in-all this is a fascinating and at times hilarious, at times deeply moving account of the typical, slightly dysfunctional, family holding a reunion forced on the protagonists by their mother’s death. A time for catharsis, chaos and comedy.
The play's unusual title derives from a scientific observation that water may have a form of memory in that when a curative element is added to it and then removed, the water retains curative properties despite there being no trace of the drug itself.
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