Chichester Festival Theatre – until 30 April 2022
Reviewed by Gill Gardiner
4****
The Taxidermist’s Daughter is a new play by internationally best-selling author Kate Mosse, adapted from her novel of the same name. The play is a Gothic thriller, using the local Fishbourne marshes as a menacing backdrop in this story of injustice and revenge.
The play centres around the eponymous hero, Connie Gifford (Daisy Prosper), who we learn suffered a childhood trauma, and as a consequence lost all of her childhood memories. The play sees her struggling to piece together what happened, through a series of flashbacks prompted by the strange events happening around her. As a storm hits the Sussex community, the past crashes with the present. One woman, unable to escape her past, takes dramatic action to get the justice that was denied to her.
The play, although set in 1912, draws many contemporary parallels. At its core, it is a story of two women, unheard and unseen, and their struggle to obtain justice. It is also about the imbalance of power, of men in positions of trust exploiting their positions without facing consequences.
The harrowing atmosphere is enhanced throughout by the staging, lighting and sound, with echoes of Wuthering Heights in the use of the weather to develop the sinister, haunting mood. The audience is plunged straight into the drama at the start of Act One, with flashing lights and pounding rain creating an almost immersive storm experience. From that point onwards the audience are on the edge of their seats waiting to see what will happen next, always with the promise of a greater storm to come. When this does arrive, in a dramatic final confrontation, the power of the elements is used to great effect to heighten feelings of anger, desperation and revenge.
Led by Daisy Prosper and Pearl Chanda (Cassie Pine), the whole cast draws the audience into the gripping mystery of what has happened to these two women. This sometimes gruesome thriller is a heart breaking story, of revenge, of family and ultimately of hope.
An extraordinary piece of theatre which brings the landscape of the location onto the stage, we are constantly reminded of the marsh, wind, rain and the power of nature. A dark gripping Gothic revenge tale of a wrong that needs to be righted, of retribution and revenge.