a girl is a half formed thing

“In the stitches of her skin she’ll wear your say.” Annie Ryan’s one woman adaptation of Eimear McBride’s stream of consciousness novel A Girl is a Half Formed Thing is electrifying. The Corn Exchange returns to The Traverse with a disquieting portrayal of a young woman’s fractured life and sexuality from infancy to adulthood. Aoife Duffin is haunting in her presentation of the anonymous Girl’s address to her beloved brother. The play begins before she is born, but the connection between the Girl and her sibling runs beyond this world.

A Girl is a Half Formed Thing has a familiar Irish theatrical connection to faith, nature and sexual repression. The Girl herself reminds me of some of Beckett or Murphy’s female characters, memories relentlessly tumbling out of her mouth. However this is a distinctly contemporary play, looking to disaffirm the dogmas of the past. Guilt seeps into all the pores of the play’s world, entangling the characters and giving cause to the Girl’s deep suffering. Duffin, dressed in pyjama bottoms and a loose T-Shirt, fills the vast, dimly lit stage, equally defiant and fragile, at least at first.

Ryan’s adaptation has Duffin embodying all the play’s characters, often in dialogue. Duffin has an extraordinary ability to transform into a brother, aunt, attacker with a slight tilt of the head or a lowering of her Kerry alto. Her performance is melancholy and soft; the stillness of the play’s direction is complemented by engaging storytelling. Every element of the production is fine-tuned, immersing the audience into a world in which the lilts of McBride’s novel are observed with painstaking accuracy through understated sound (Mel Mercier) and lighting (Sinead Wallace) as well as Ryan’s exquisite direction.

Ryan stated that McBride’s A Girl is a Half Formed Thing begs to be heard; her production brings the novel to life in a mesmerising theatrical feat.

A Girl is a Half Formed Thing is playing at The Traverse (Venue 15) from 11-16, 18-23 and 25-30 August as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For more information, visit the Edinburgh Fringe website.