Donny's Brain

by Rona Munro

Who would you be if you forgot who you were And who are we without our memories Are we just a bunch of chemicals sloshing around



Donny wakes up in hospital, desperate to see his partner Emma and not understanding why she hasn't come to see him yet. Soon he realises he's forgotten something. Something important. Donny still sees the world as the person he used to be three years ago, when his life was in a very different place.



Rona Munro's play Donny's Brain is a bittersweet tale about forgetting love and losing yourself. Delving deep into the convoluted and eternal mysteries of the human brain, it follows Donny and Emma's painfully funny and emotional journey of recovery and rediscovery, throwing into question all they thought they knew about love and loss.



It is premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in April 2020 (an earlier workshop production was staged at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 2012).

• ISBN13: 9781848429659
• Publish Date: 24 September 2020 (first published 15 January 2016)
• Publish Status: Cancelled
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Nick Hern Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 96
• Language: English

Reviews

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

The whole time I listened to Donny’s Brain I could help but have this sense of déjà vu. I felt like I had seen this play or encountered it in some other fashion as some point in my life. Maybe I saw pieces of it performed in my days on the Speech Team in college or maybe there was a movie based on it, I don’t know. Anyway, as a result, this was a seriously weird listen to me as I wracked my brain, alongside Donny, trying to figure out why it was so familiar.

The acting was well done in Donny’s Brain. I enjoyed Jared Harris’s performance and thought he did a stellar job expressing confusion and anger as dictated by his character’s injury. However, it was difficult times to tell the difference between Emma and Trish unless they were in scene together. Their voices were so similar.

Overall, I did enjoy listening to this play. However, at some key points, like during the scientific discussions and in scenes involving Trish and Emma separately with Donny, I may have benefited from actually seeing the play or it would have been beneficial to have more distinct voices. While the play just ended without any real resolution to Donny’s plight, this recording contains some solid performances while exploring brain injuries and how this type of injury affects friends and family.
This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews