A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing

The play goes from pre-birth to 20 years old

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing

Norwich Playhouse, part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 15

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 14 May 2015

Readers of the ground-breaking novel, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, telling the journey of an Irish girl from pre-birth to 20, may be surprised to see it’s transposed into a play.

But it makes a terrific performance. Eimear McBride’s personal journey is spell-binding theatre by Dublin company, The Corn Exchange and director Annie Ryan.

The sole actor, Aoilfe Duffin, brings the foetus, the child, the young woman to life before our eyes in a tour de force that reveals her ‘complex and conflicted character.’

Her inner narrative is played in a stream of different voices and characters. She undergoes sexual awakening, religion and pain through a unique dynamic language and physicality.

The experience will live in the mind for weeks. It brings us up close to the realities of being alive, being a woman and growing up.

Locally based McBride – she is married to NNF Director William Galinski – is already writing another novel. She could get a film offer for this one. She is deservedly set to become part of our literary-dramatic landscape.

Image: Anatomist90