A Stronger Arm

TopTrumps | Theatre503

19 - 21 January 2017

Director: Sophie Austin
Mrs Adams: Sara Stewart

"Equally illuminating is A Stronger Arm, a verbatim piece consisting of fragments from an interview that a London-based US writer, Christopher Adams, conducted with his mother on a Christmas trip home. Although Mrs Adams’ religion, politics and gender should have made Trump inimical to her, she came to the conclusion that he would make her and the nation safer. The piece should be taught on creative writing courses as an example of how to explore with integrity views with which the writer disagrees.” -- Mark Lawson in The Guardian

My favourite was A Stronger Arm: A Verbatim Play by Chris Adams, an American playwright living in London who, basically, spent Christmas recording his mum who voted for you know who. The actress Sara Stewart, in her I Love Santa jumper, with her swingy honey highlighted hair, perfectly echoed the thoughts of so many middle-brow, middle-aged American women. “She’s very cold,” she says, “very two-faced.” That’s Hillary, of course. A word she associates with Trump is “security”. Is he going to be a good role model?” she muses. “I don’t really know!” -- Ann Treneman in The Times

"Family relations were also at the heart of A Stronger Arm, a striking verbatim play by Chris Adams interviewing his own Trump-voting mother...” -- Sarah Crompton in Whatsonstage.com

Photo: Tristram Kenton in The Guardian