3 January 2020. SnowFlake at the Kiln

This was a seemingly straightforward play by Mike Bartlett, pointing out the destructiveness of power relationships and of belittling remarks.
The first act features a solo as the 43 year old widowered Dad, Andy, rehearses and prepares for the showing up of his estranged daughter at a Christmastime reunion he has planned in the neutral territory of the village hall. Natalie arrives, ostensibly to collect some plates for an event. She works the conversation around to Andy's reason for being there and starts advising him on the best approach - to listen and apologise. She is trying to point out that perhaps he has never really listened to his daughter of given her views proper respect. He dismisses his behaviours as normal family banter and ends up rowing with Natalie at which point the estranged daughter Maya shows up. We now realise that Maya and Natalie are in a relationship and Natalie was trying to smooth the ground for a reconciliation between Maya and her father because the rift is causing trouble to the two women's relationship.
Essentially, the action then involves Andy coming to see the insidious effect that his power play had had on his daughter. He had never got out of treating her as a child and she was sick of not having her voice heard and being treated as always of secondary importance. In particular, he had a condescending attitude that made fun of her ideas, in a subtle way putting them down. Even the protest is itself the subject of mockery - you're a snowflake. This could be seen as controlling behaviour but the play seemed to have it as thoughtless habit. Either way,  we had a powerful illustration of how destructive this dynamic can be.
Some of the reviews seemed to focus on the substance of what these generations fought over and in particular that he voted for Brexit while Maya did not. However, to me it was far less the detail of the topics but the way in which the father treated his daughter's views that mattered and was the take-away from the evening.
Excellently acted, the play ends with a rather trite reconciliation between everyone - but then it is a Christmas play.