There was a questionnaire tucked inside the program for MINDING MADNESS tonight and that says a great deal. Improvising Change is a theatre company with change and growth as imperatives and while this production needs very little modification, it was announced as a ‘work in progress’. There was evident support for the production in the room and, as attested by the standing ovation, the audience were obviously won over by the production as it stands.
With every single word a verbatim bite of experience, MINDING MADNESS takes its name from the children who care for a parent or parents with mental illness. Created as part performance and part movement, the show is stylistically aligned with black box theatre. It makes very clever use of costuming with a black and white palette that serves to emphasise the suggestive hit of red on each performer as we meet them. 3 women and two men are introduced with the comfort of a favoured ‘blankie’, teddy, book or snow globe each has something to hold tight, and the program informs us that the ages, gender and other details have been changed.
The work has a loose structure without be narrative or didactic and lighting and music is used very effectively to segment sequences with a gentle elision. It begins with a rendering of issues such as a child’s lack of agency, paucity of material things and a bereftness of opportunity. It concludes with the mantle of powerlessness that covers children when they are unable to protect the person they love.
And there it is, the throughline of this production. Love. The show never loses sight of the love that children can hold for a vulnerable, sometimes excitable, sometimes lost, parent.
The ensemble cast begin as children speaking to us of their experience but they will skilfully portray the bullies and abusers and the onlookers who avoid getting involved in a series of vignettes that encapsulate an idea. We see children raising children, the role of extended family carers and we hear from adults looking back. They play families and teenagers with absolute believability and no theatrics.
For this truth. The words are real and have been curated with care and crafted by co-devising writer, Joy Roberts, to share the reality that many of us struggle to fully understand. Without any jargon, the production makes the labels and diagnoses, or lack thereof, very accessible. Some words leap out… “mania” but other subtler themes seep out through phrases like “schizo scared” and “I became …”
The performances are nuanced and controlled and the ensemble cast who are also co-devisers of the work (Antony Press, Cormac Costello, Debra Bryan, Jackie Nader, Olga Olshansky) are engaged and responsive and Director Corinna Galliano has sensitively modulated the emotional impact.
There’s a joy here too. Moments to laugh at absurdity placed beautifully. The movement is also placed with care, the motivation evident and emotion empathetically envisioned. In one sequence parents fight with 3 simple cohesive actions repeated repeated repeated . The metaphor is foregrounded with a sharp physicality that is one of the hallmarks of the visual look of the piece.
The music is well used to support the emotion but also to presage. Allow the strings to introduce ‘Ave Maria’ and we can see what’s coming. But the production is designed with an unpredictability about what comes next. It may give children a voice but where and how to reduce that childhood trauma, burden and struggle, that is our job and the literature made available at the table where we filled out our questionnaires is a start. When this production is reprised, make it your business to see it, to learn, to understand and to take action.
MINDING MADNESS from Improvising Change [Facebook] was one night only, on Thursday 18th October 2018. You can see a SAG review of another of the company’s works RHYMES WITH SILENCE here.
