Francesca Bartellini’s monologue Father, which had its European premiere at the Tron this week, offers another deeply troubling picture of family life in the west. Here the story is told mainly by a middle-aged mother who has just learned what she fears she always partly knew; that her ex- partner, a well-known climate scientist, systematically abused their now grown-up daughter throughout her childhood.
In the dense poetic texture of the script there is a haunting vision of a world destroyed by patriarchal attitudes taking some kind of watery revenge on the whole of humanity; including women like this mother, who collude with abusive men by somehow seeing and saying nothing, even when the truth is right in front of their eyes.

JOYCE MCMILLAN