Her Will Be Done

 By Laura Park 

There are two things a daughter can be sure to receive from her mother: Childhood trauma and grandma's recipe for homemade potato soup. 

Cliché: Mothers meddle with their children’s affairs for as long as they live.
Fact: Some continue to do so even after they’ve died.

Dierdre and Marlene's mother has dominated her daughters throughout their lives - for the sisters, growing up proved to be a character-forming experience indeed. Now she's passed away, but instead of having to deal with the usual emotional stew of grief and relief, the old lady spiced it up by adding a little mischief as well.

Her spectre comes back to haunt her offspring in the form of several, at least partly mutually exclusive last wills, all of them tied to the most ridiculous conditions. Not only do the bereaved now have to sort out the bank account and that old shack of a house they've been left with, they must also rummage through the emotional baggage, peer into the hindmost drawers of their minds, in order to face their own feelings of guilt, terror and whatever else it is that a woman can possibly be feeling towards her own mother.

While the experience may sound like hell for the involved parties, it promises to be a hell of a party for the uninvolved onlooker.

If you already thought it a feat to combine the Old and the New Testament in one book, then you will admire the mindgames of this old lady.

With vicious wit, a good dose of humour and the much-admired British detachedness in the face of true evil (e.g. blackpudding), Laura Park explores the abyss that is the soul of those women we all come from and that most of us - inexplicably - are striving to become. Enjoy!

Directed by Marisa Giannini.
In affiliation with the Department of British and American Studies of the Dresden University of Technology.

In English.