In an epigraph to her outstanding stage debut The Almighty Sometimes, Australian playwright Kendall Feaver cites a medical textbook on The Bipolar Child which quotes advice from a nine-year-old, outlining what should be done when a child says they are suicidal.
Firstly, take it seriously. Secondly, ask the doctor for medication. But most importantly: “If this situation ever happens, hold them still until they calm down and stop wanting to kill themselves. Hold them until they feel a part of this world.”
Anna Phillips is turning 18. She has been on a mix of anti-psychotic drugs, anti-depressants and other mood-altering medications for more than seven years, and they have successfully managed what her devoted mother Renee calls “the volcanic effect” of her mood swings.
But when Anna finds a drawer full of notebooks filled with wild, dark, strikingly imaginative stories which she precociously wrote at the age of nine, she yearns to rediscover that well of creativity that has been blocked and subdued. Without the knowledge of her mother or her psychiatrist Vivienne, she stops her meds in search of what might be her “true” self.
Emily Liu and Tamara Lee as Anna and her mother Renee in The Almighty Sometimes. Photo: Bri Hammon
Feaver skilfully weaves a subtle and complex narrative which includes and acknowledges the many facets of the riddle and the tragedy of mental illness. Anna’s defiant search for true agency and identity is weighed against the realities of her vulnerability and psychic pain, the stresses on her nascent romance with her boyfriend Oliver, the limits and the strict patient protocols with Vivienne, and the approximate, unsustainable and unpredictable efficacy of the medications themselves.
In Theatre Republic’s galvanising production in the Space Theatre, director Corey McMahon has managed these many threads, emotions, pros and cons, hopes and disappointments for an unblinking two hours.
Meg Wilson’s spare, abstract, almost classical set suits the elemental themes of the text. Nic Mollison’s subtle, radiant lighting, softened with the merest hints of pastel, reveals all without over-interrogating, and composer Jason Sweeney’s brief interludes between key scenes range from beguiling ambient repetitions to muted bouts of incipiently agitated timpani drum samples. The combined effect from the Theatre Republic’s usual suspects is intriguingly and elegantly understated – and perfectly serves the play.
The performances are also first-rate. Anna Steen navigates the role of Vivienne, the psychiatrist, capturing the conflicts of her familiarity with a child patient who is now a consenting adult. When Anna crosses the lines and protocols of the profession by asking whether Vivienne even likes her, the doctor’s reply is one of many beautifully judged speeches in Feaver’s terrific text.
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As Oliver, the shy suitor in his late teens, himself carer to a mentally besieged father living in squalid disarray, Simon Chandler memorably engages with Anna in ways that are comically disarming, raising hopes and wish fulfilments, but also sharply reminding us of the many ways in which the unpredictability of mental illness can cause trepidation, and eventually exasperated rejection.
Emily Liu, as Anna, brings an assurance and intensity which propels the play’s considerable ambition. She is endearing, childlike, impish and then in a flash, the meanest of mean girls. It is not 360-degree head-spinning stuff, but glimpses of cruelty, turbulence and sullen petulance.
We also believe she is gifted and vibrant, and in her brief butterfly awakening when she is unshackled from her tranquilised torpor, we are both thrilled and dangerously misled. Liu copes with the large wads of Feaver’s dialogue remarkably well, and in the crucial scenes in the second act she is at her most impressive.
Also key to the success of the production (as the character of Renee is to the play) is Tamara Lee as the lion-hearted mother. Her undaunting vigilance, her anxiety and apprehension at any hint of relapse in Anna is fully apparent and often hard to behold. When Anna is at her most vile, Renee has no option but to stand and bear it.
She is her advocate, her defender, her medical liaison, and sacrifices most of herself in the process. Lee brings all these impossible tasks and duties vividly to life. She is the one holding her turbulent, tormented, synapse-crackling daughter still, earthing her until she feels a part of this world – again.
McMahon and Theatre Republic are very good at finding high-calibre new Australian plays. Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree comes to mind, as do the new works by Emily Steel. And here we are again. This excellent production of an outstanding play has only a short season – don’t let it go by. It is one of the highlights of the year.
Theatre Republic is presenting The Almighty Sometimes at the Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, until September 28.