In Two Minds @ Traverse Theatre

In Two Minds is a beautiful exploration of mother-daughter relationships and mental illness

Review by Ellen Davis-Walker | 05 Aug 2024
  • In Two Minds

Deep in the throes of a three-day manic episode, an unnamed mother recounts her experience of seeing stars. “There were thousands of them,” she tells her daughter, who looks on wordlessly. “They were so beautiful, blue, almost purple, and everywhere around me. I didn’t know you had those stars here as well.”

In Two Minds, based on playwright Joanne Ryan’s own experience of her mother’s late-in-life bipolar diagnosis, is a moving insight into realities of living with mental illness. A long-anticipated kitchen extension sees a mother move in with her daughter, who is piecing together a career as a freelance journalist amidst looming concerns about mortgages and fertility. Alyson Cummins’s staging effectively uses minimalist furniture and storage boxes to create a sense of claustrophobic containment (whilst giving a nod to Ireland’s ongoing housing crisis), as mother and daughter are forced to confront the chasm of silence that exists between them.

Although In Two Minds will have a universal relatability to anyone who has ever had to (re)-explain Zoom meeting etiquette to a relative, this relatability at times came at the expense of the specificity needed for Ryan’s message to land. Although Boyd and McCartney move together with easy familiarity, folding quilts and moving furniture in long, fluid gestures, the wider context of their relationship feels noticeably absent from the script. Although In Two Minds runs for one hour and twenty minutes, its pacing is at times oddly rushed, in need of more narrative time and space throughout.

Despite this, a profound undercurrent of love between mother and daughter allows for strong performances from both actors to shine through. Karen McCartney’s movements are particularly beautiful to watch. Her wide-eyed stares and slightly hesitant-but-gentle gestures convey so much of the unspoken confusion that comes with caring for an ill parent. Pom Boyd’s ability to switch between effortless effervescence and crushing pain – whilst still maintaining excellent comic timing – was also a real strength.

In Two Minds is a beautiful testament to the complexity of many mother-daughter relationships. It is a reminder that, individual illness or circumstances notwithstanding, 'mother' will always be both a noun and verb. It is a constantly shifting way of being: one that inevitably has the potential to heal and hurt us the most. In the end, In Two Minds is a testament to the solace that can be found in stepping closer despite this difficulty: eyes open to other constellations, and other ways of being.


In Two Minds, Traverse Theatre (Traverse 2), until 25 Aug, various times, £15.75-22.75