Grief is an all-encompassing feeling. When someone you love dies, there is no way of knowing how you will react to it, or how people ‘expect’ you to react to it, and, although time heals, and grief fades, it never really goes away.
Helen by Maureen Lennon is about the death of a husband and father. It's about how the titular character and her daughter Becca, who is a teenager at the time, cope together – and apart – after bereavement. The play goes through a roller-coaster of emotions and feels very honest in its portrayal of what the days, weeks and years feel like after such a big loss, and the shock-waves that are felt by the people who are left behind.
Stylistically, the text is fast-paced and there are constant interruptions of dialogue, which helps to build a picture of the tension and strain both Helen and Becca feel. There are also awkward moments where they are unsure of how to speak to each other and navigate life together on their own. Lennon captures this type of mother-daughter relationship very well. There's closeness and love, but also the frustration and irritation they both feel about how each other is processing their grief – and how Becca often acts more like a mother than Helen does. The writing reminded me of two of Duncan Macmillan's plays, Lungs and Constellations, as often you're not quite sure which scene you've started reading; the words overlap, and time jumps very quickly from scene to scene.
This is a play with three characters, played by only two actors. It's a very intense read and I imagine this could be played really powerfully by A level students as an exam piece, as it shows off such a range of emotions, over many years, in a cleverly fast-paced package. It's a short play, but it moves very quickly. When I started reading it, I found the structure of the dialogue difficult as you never really get into it enough; Lennon doesn't leave the reader much time to process what is going on, but I suppose that is the point. Grief doesn't follow a specific pattern. Sometimes you feel you have a cavernous amount of time to sit with that pain and discomfort, and at other times life moves on so quickly there isn't time to process what is happening. This play is a really honest portrayal of what it is like for those loved ones left behind.