Broken Colour

Colour becomes rich in meaning, fractures and resolves, before it is revealed as mere wavelengths, simply continuing to exist, just as it always has…

In Nina Pearce’s Broken Colour, a psychiatrist returns from a wonderful holiday with his artist wife, keen to start a family, only to find the well-ordered plan of his life being challenged. Wife Olivia questions his certainties, disturbing his peaceful assumptions with questions about this world, the role of humans, and the merits of bringing more children into the confusion. He returns to work, only to find a new patient who is asking and answering the same questions that his wife is posing, constantly confronting his fundamental understanding of life.

Caris Eves worked well with the role of Eliza, enabling audience members to engage with her character while in the throes of her manic episode, in the sometimes humiliating encounters of the psychiatric ward and again once she has been despairingly ‘cured’. Pearce has written solid dialogue explaining Eliza’s experiences, enough to fill in the gaps for the audience and to educate a little about the underlying cause of mania, without going overly into medical detail or slipping into preachy mental health advocacy.

Eliza’s exuberant outbursts were neatly echoed by Olivia, played by the gorgeous Hannah Day, who vividly conveyed the frantic creative doubt of the professional artist. James Helm provided an all-too-human portrayal of the confused and frustrated Gareth, responding convincingly to the bewildering actions of his companions. Pearce, who also performs in the work she has written, inhabited a versatile set of side characters, adding some splashes of comedic colour alongside the intense examinations of the three main roles.

Sound and lighting were both effective at creating atmosphere, an essential feature of any performance in the confined spaces of the Blue Room Theatre. However the staging was cleverly designed to give it a deceptively spacious feel, despite the tumbling avalanches of words that erupted from the female leads at points, filling the set with emotions and observations rather than props and scenery.

A thought-provoking production, examining the nature of reality as experienced through the lens of mental health and the heightened sensations of manic episodes.

Rating 3 ½ stars out of 5