Reviewed by Andy Smith
Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5
Venue: The New Theatre, Temple Bar
Time: 6:00pm
Running time: 60 minutes
Saving for a Helicopter is a one-woman autobiographical show written and performed by Donegal native Gráinne Curistan. It is both poignant and, more often than not, hilarious, weaving together two timelines: the first from the perspective of a child learning how to cope with a parent living with a serious illness, and the second from the now-adult child dealing with her own diagnosis of the same hereditary condition.
You might expect a subject like this to make for a heavy hour of theatre, but Curistan has crafted a play that sparkles with life and laughter.
The play opens on a minimal stage, populated with little more than an office chair and a medical screen, as Gráinne receives the diagnosis that she does indeed have the life-threatening kidney disease that runs through her family. From there, we are taken back to her childhood, where we meet her father, the carrier of the condition.
Over the next 60 minutes, the story moves backwards and forwards through time as we meet a host of characters who shape both narratives. As much as this is Gráinne’s story, it is also very much her father’s. She clearly loved him deeply and, through her masterful portrayal of him, the audience gets to fall in love with this funny, caring and much-loved man too.
As both stories move through their highs and lows, from hospital visits and referrals to rejection and heartbreak, the laughter keeps coming. The action moves from small-town life in Donegal to Dublin and Belfast with ease. The New Theatre is an intimate venue with a small stage, but Curistan uses every inch of it to move us seamlessly from scene to scene.
This really is a play for everyone. Most of us have spent time in doctors’ waiting rooms or accompanied loved ones to hospital, and Curistan distils those experiences into something full of love, hope, laughter and just enough heartbreak.
Although this is not a musical, Curistan pulls off a masterstroke by bookending the play with two musical numbers, both sung by herself. If the writing and acting thing somehow doesn’t work out, which I suspect it absolutely will, she could do far worse than pursue singing too. There is also another small song within the body of the play that sends the room into stitches — pun very much intended.
As both strands of the story reach their conclusion, Curistan keeps the tension high, the emotions bubbling and the laughs coming.
She lays bare two of the most visceral experiences a person can face: the mortality of a parent and one’s own mortality. To leave the theatre after that with nothing but love and laughter in your heart is a testament to her skill as both a writer and performer. Her very presence on stage is a testament to her resilience, while her father’s story ends as the loving tribute this play ultimately becomes.
