Cabaret Fringe Festival. Kevin Crease Studios (Channel 9). Hannah Bennett. 5 Jun 2015
Grand psychological dramas, exemplified by Shakespeare’s King Lear and Hamlet, tend to be foundations upon which emotive understandings of mental break down or dysfunction, and cultural cues for expressing such understanding, is based.
Early 21st century society is gripped by intense focus on mental health issues and services as numbers suffering depression and associated mental conditions rise.
There is nothing grand about the gradual inability to get out of bed. Self-esteem pushed constantly into the ground; pushing one’s self to exhaustion searching for approval and success in fighting this ‘thing’; the fear of social interaction tackled with self-worth raising exercises that lead nowhere - or becoming one way tickets to addiction, insolvency or both – all different parts of many varied experiences and consequences of depression.
Hannah Bennett’s Myriad is her personal experience; trustingly handed to Director/Writer Suzannah Kennett Lister that she might write a work so that Bennett could offer her experience through performance and song to an audience in a manner comfortably understood, even identifiable with.
A trust Lister has honoured. The script’s blend of anecdote and song is simple, personable and direct without holding back from expressing dark things, nor giving full vent to truly bright moments. While Lister’s sea metaphor on which much of the work is based is somewhat laboured, Designer Ben Roberts’ use of pine single bed with white sheeting, encircled by sand with concentric grooves and Alexander Ramsay’s sparse but atmospheric lighting provide a perfect space in which struggling to get up, get on, and get out of this trap is played out.
Lister’s direction is crisp. Truly beautiful in the manner she utilises every element of the production to eke out, directly and metaphorically as much meaning and context from Bennett’s performance as possible. Accompanist Carol Young’s deft and gentle piano perfectly pairs Bennett’s range, most particularly with songs Sounds of Silence and an upbeat rendition of Tricky.
Bennett’s relaxed physicality onstage and smooth transition from anecdote to song successfully belies much of the real darkness being spoken of, because Bennett is able to use Roberts’ minimal in-the-round set to establish comfortable, loving intimacy with her audience.
Importantly, as Bennett says “it’s all in your head. Well that may be, but that doesn’t make it go away,” and proceeds to make the point one’s head is a real thing, as many thoughts and emotions it contains; it’s something we all share.
Just as every audience and individual perceives a production differently, so will those who have had some experience alike to Bennett’s. For some, this might be too much. For others, a moment of recognition how far they’ve travelled. For all, realisation that, that moment we don’t want to get out of bed can lead everyone somewhere they didn’t want to go.
David O’Brien
When: 5 to 20 Jun
Where: Kevin Crease Studios, Channel 9
Bookings: cabaretfringefestival.com
