Anna Burnside reviews a disappointing instalment in A Play, A Pie and A Pint’s current season.
Saria is an Iranian singer and performer, growing up in a country where it’s not acceptable for women to do these things.
Writer, director and performer Sara Amini takes us on a karaoke tour of Sarah’s life, from Iranian pop tunes to protest songs on the school bus. Tehran, Paris then Poland, via music and costume changes, we see her struggle change but never end.
Eventually, pregnant, she washes up in London.
This all unrolls at a stately pace. The pivotal moment comes when A Play, A Pie and A Pint audiences are normally heading back up the stairs. Saria’s son Nemo, now a withdrawn teenager, is questioning their gender identity.
Why, the exasperated mother asks, do they want to be a woman when it has made her life so endlessly difficult?
This is an excellent question to explore via music, outfits and drama. Here, shoehorned into the last five minutes, it is not given anything like the airtime it deserves.
The pacing across the whole piece is off, with time wasted on over-long songs and random video inserts. Even the on-stage costume changes are laboured.
All we know about Nemo before that big reveal is that they liked dancing with their mother—Nemo is woefully underdeveloped, making what could be a chewy piece of theatre thin and unsatisfying.
Saria Callas performs at Oran Mor’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint until May 31, 2025. For more information go to their website.
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
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