Menagerie Theatre Company’s Albatross is a powerful new play by George Devine and Bruntwood Prize winner Martha Loader, exploring care, responsibility and love in an age of climate catastrophe.
Directed by and featuring Patrick Morris, the production centres on glaciologist Alice, their mother Eve, and the child caught between generations, weaving intimate family tensions with urgent global questions about what one generation owes the next.
Albatross tours the UK from 28 April to 23 May, before playing Omnibus Theatre in London from 26 to 30 May. Tickets are available now here.
You’re directing and starring in Albatross at Omnibus Theatre. What can you tell us about the show?
It’s true that I’m directing and performing in Albatross, but I’m not the star. The two central characters are Alice and Eve, played by Caroline Rippin and Agnes Lillis. They are the true stars.
It’s a show about a mother-daughter relationship, exploring intergenerational debt and how we care for those coming after us. It takes place at night in Eve’s kitchen following Alice’s return from a research trip to Antarctica.
Alice’s daughter is asleep upstairs. She’s never seen, but she is at the heart of this extraordinary play.
As both director and performer, how has wearing those two hats shaped your relationship with the story and your approach in the rehearsal room?
I’ve always tried to be clear when I’ve got my directing hat on and when I’m wearing my acting hat.
My character, Martin, is one step removed from the emotional intensity of Alice and Eve. He is Eve’s new boyfriend and spends about a third of the play offstage.
In terms of playing him, I’ve really tried to work with how he supports the story. Yes, there are times when he takes centre stage, but it’s really about how he engages with the Alice and Eve relationship that’s most interesting from an audience perspective.
Albatross explores intergenerational relationships against the backdrop of climate catastrophe. What was most important to you in balancing the personal family drama with the broader political and environmental themes?
Ensuring that the workings of the human heart lay at the centre of proceedings.
This is a play about intense family relationships. Their complexity, their messiness and their potential. The broader political and social themes are there in the experience of both central characters. They literally embody them.
Eve, a woman in her early sixties, has given up so much of her own ambition to look after and care for others, currently her own daughter’s daughter. Alice is at a very important point in her career and also has a young daughter.
They are both juggling so many calls on their time, attention and emotional energy. The play takes place at a moment of great change for both of them. While they may love each other and care for each other, the pressures on their relationship are what makes the play an entertaining and wholly engaging experience for the audience.
The play is rooted in extensive research with Antarctic researchers, many of whom are women and parents. How did that research influence your directorial choices and performance?
I think it influenced Martha’s writing more than my own choices.
You can see the domestic and epic experience of Antarctic researchers who are also mothers in Chris Dobrowolski’s design. He’s set it in a kitchen, the heart of a home, but Antarctica is also very present in the shapes, colours and feel of the set.
Working with actor Caroline Rippin to create the role of Alice has also been a big part of honouring that research. She brings not only her own life experience, but her professional abilities, to embody the stories we’ve both read and heard through the research.
This production is touring nationally before arriving in London. How has the show evolved on the road, and what are you most excited for London audiences to experience?
As I write, we’ve just played three performances of Albatross. However, already, rehearsals seem a long time ago.
Audiences and different venues make a difference to our experience. It can be painful, but it’s enormously grounding to be sensitive to audience reaction without being swayed too much by it.
These performances have already taught us a lot about the pace, the rhythms and the sense of the story. We love talking to audiences afterwards, informally, and it’s always fascinating to see and hear what they take in and how they feel as they watch the piece.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see Albatross?
If you’re looking for a highly emotive piece of family drama, with the necessary comedy thrown in, come and see Albatross.
It’s a play which explores the public and private realms in equal measure. It is about how, even when we try to be the best we can be, it’s not always enough.
And, as Martha says, it’s a mother-daughter love story.
