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| Selkie by Caroline Emerick 2013 |
Despite its ‘otherworldly’ subject matter, ‘The Selkie Wife’ deals with all too
human dilemmas.
An amusing subplot shows the effect a handsome young man,
particularly one whose knowledge of social morality is loose, has on an
impressionable teenage girl; fathers of young girls will fully sympathise with
Cal as he tries vainly to protect his daughter’s honour and her ‘peanut butter
virginity’.
A more serious central image is that of ‘the walkers’:
couples who unconsciously give mutual physical protection as they walk along
the cliff edge, because, as Mary explains to Dylan, if something bad should
happen, each wants to look after the other: ‘they’d rather be dead than the one
left behind’.
This idea of loving someone else more than oneself is
contrasted with the Selkie life of individual freedom: attractive to anyone who
has been abused and denied freedom, as the women in the play have: the fear of
making oneself vulnerable to more hurt by falling in love again is implicit in
the character of Gen, who struggles to understand why Mary has made a life on
land with Cal.
Striking, funny, heart-rending and beautifully written, ‘The Selkie Wife’ also gives the
audience much to ponder.
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