Mia: Daughters of Fortune

★★★★
theatre review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
Published 11 Aug 2017
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39658 original

This show from the terrific Mind the Gap theatre company sets out to explore "the truths and myths about learning difficulties and parenthood in today's society". It's a failure if taken entirely on these terms.

The vast majority of its audience will enter the room aware that many people with learning difficulties are sexually active and in possession of fully functioning reproductive organs. The conflict between an individual's right to autonomy over their own body and the availability of public resources required to ensure parents and children receive the care and support they need is a stark case of idealism versus pragmatism, an ethical debate in which concepts of truth and myth are rendered almost redundant.

Mia: Daughters of Fortune is wholly successful if approached as a provocative exercise in humanising an issue that many prefer to look at coldly from a position of detachment. It's refreshing and important to see charismatic marginalised people celebrate their stories, their dreams and their very existence, as they do here. The cast members are comfortable breaking from their script to engage in improvisation, and the distinct personalities of all four come across throughout bold and imaginative set pieces. Each is clearly aware of their own limitations and of the responsibility to plan and take ownership of significant life decisions.