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Eimear McBride

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing

November 22, 2021

Performed as one long 80-minute monologue, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing also offers actor Jenn Murray little, if any, respite, laying on her shoulders complete responsibility for telling every detail of its emotionally unyielding story. Besides the girl, she must give voice to all of the other unnamed characters in the play, too, distinguishing them so that the staged version of McBride's novel, where it's impossible to simply reread a sentence, has an immediate intelligibleness. By itself, this feat is enough to make Murray's performance astonishing, but it's only the tip of her accomplishments. [more]

A Girl is a Half-formed Thing

April 27, 2016

Ms. Duffin portrays the heroine as well as a multitude of characters using a strong Irish accent, expert physical transformations and her strong presence. Barefoot, wearing plaid lounge pants and a blue T-shirt Duffin holds forth on the black walled stage that has a few slits of lights and a floor strewn with earth. Though she is commanding, the nature of the material ultimately renders her performance and the overall experience of the play as wearying. [more]