Delirium

Image by Romy Steigmann

Take a seat, yes literally, grab your stool and get ready for the delirious ride into the fecund and humorously macabre mind of Amy Bell, whose latest work Delirium recently premiered in Cairns.

On entering the theatre space, there was already an unpredictability, as audiences were unsure where to sit among the theatrical scaffold, a series of sparse and fragile settings softly lit to hint at the journey ahead.   

Centre stage is a pile of dirt and tropical foliage. This is where the play begins, a startling vision of the strangeness of North Queensland life. The environment is the third performer in this play and the protagonist. She permeates every scene in the form of buzzing mosquitoes, twisted limbs, carnivorous rainforests, dirt, dust, and cyclones. She breathes, she is infected, and she rages against mankind. Mankind is deliberately used here as it is the male characters that are wreaking havoc, infecting their lovers, wives, daughters, while the women, not without their own faults, bring our focus back to fertility and mother earth. Indeed Bell’s inspiration for the work derives from a global concern.‘Our disconnection with mother nature generates a poison in ourselves as we lose track of an essential balance’, she says. ‘Theatre is a powerful tool; it inspires thought, and thought generates action. So I decided to write’.

There are six stories, 12 characters and two performers played by Veronica Brady and Ryan Gibson, whose strong physicality leads us through these intertwining tales. Together there is a great sense of comedic play and absurdist antics, but it is Brady that is particularly mesmerising with her bold character choices, from the highly strung junkie to the punk grandmother who is hilarious. She demonstrates both a fragility and a raw primal strength combined with a sinewy gracefulness of movement. Her physical theatre training is evident and she dares to push theatrical boundaries that almost verge on melodrama, but her focus, comedic timing and intention are so clear that we are fully prepared to believe her. Gibson had great moments, particularly with his very earnest volunteer disaster role and his slapstick routines while trying to rescue a frail old woman in the path of a cyclone, or so he thought. Perhaps there could have been greater ‘dramatic steaks’, pardon the pun, in the barbeque scene, as there needed more carnal menace as well as greater unresolved sexual tension in the feathered tango.

The set and costume design by Simone Tesorieri & Simona Cosentini were quite sublime in that there was just enough detail to create a poetic essence of their surroundings, be it a nest resting precariously on a limb, a verdant rainforest, a doctors surgery illuminated via shadow play, or a thorny rose garden. There were some wonderful reveals throughout the show through costuming, special effects and bloody gore.

The director, Suellen Maunder, made refreshing directorial choices in staging that allowed the audience to imbue the sparse settings with their own imaginings, collapsing distances which increased the dramatic tension between the performers, or expanding the space to pit the audience from one performer against the other as if in a tug of war between young and old, naivety and wisdom, mankind and mother earth. Maunder showed sensitivity and sophistication by further imbuing the entire environment with a Pinter/Sartre/Kafkaesque quality which was already prevalent in Bell’s text. There is Jean-Paul Satre’s No Exit, and we do create our own environment, hellish or otherwise.

Jason Glenwright’s lighting also showed an intelligence and subtlety and contrasted this with garish greens, blood splattering reds and pulsing lights to alter mood and psyche. The overall production, including a dynamic soundscape, demonstrated a great collaboration between all the creatives that allowed the work to breathe.

This show Delirium, is definitely a visceral experience, you may not know exactly what is going on and why, but you will have a stimulation of the senses. This is Amy Bell’s first full-length play to be produced by Jute Theatre Company of which she should be enormously proud. Bell’s home in the Daintree rainforest is obviously a fertile ground for creativity, vivid, gothic storytelling and devilishly good humour, so stay tuned.