Akedah. Hampstead Theatre.

Office cleaner with mental health issues Gill (Amy Molloy) receives a mysterious text message from estranged sister Kelly (Ruby Campbell), 15 years her junior. “Come home” the message says, so home to the north coast of Northern Ireland Gill duly comes. On arrival she encounters Kelly in the sea with a grizzled old woman.

Confused by what is taking place, Gill rushes to save her sister from apparent danger, injuring the old lady in the process. But to her shock she soon realises what is taking place is actually a baptism of a new worshipper into an evangelical church, led by the hyper-religious Kelly. Wet and confused, the two sisters head to the church building to dry off and face off. There is a bitter family history soon to emerge: the girls’ mother was a sex worker and father a brutal and violent paramilitary thug. Long-standing secrets come out in ways that leave each sister changed. But what are these secrets and just who is the mysterious old woman?

Quite what all this has to do with the title – Akedah is the Hebrew word for the binding of Isaac by Abraham in the Old Testament as he prepares to sacrifice his son – is bafflingly unclear. There is a child’s toy sheep in the mix, which for various unfathomable reasons gets eviscerated by an emotional Gill. Perhaps the has something to do with this.

Amy Molloy gives a solid turn as the Gill, whose touch with reality is tenuous and whose life is a mess. But ultimately this is a story that just does not convince. Even the quality director Lucy Morrison cannot do much with this mess.

BY MICHAEL JOHN O’NEILL
DIRECTED BY LUCY MORRISON