DARK NATURE at the Canal Café Theatre

★★★

“But Betts, in a flowing, gothic black dress, is a striking presence”

When looking back over our lives, many of us have a ‘before and after’ event lodged in our mind. Some sort of milestone which we use to place memories. Sometimes trivial, often traumatic. What happened ‘before’ remains immutable. The aftershock usually has various, ghostlike pathways as the ‘what if…?’ question echoes internally and insistently. Until we finally realise that the present – and possibly the future – is as unchangeable as the past. There are no ‘sliding doors’ we can control at our whim. Not even in fairy tales.

Michaela Betts, in her atmospheric and candidly personal musical narrative “Dark Nature, seems to have reached that point. It is not always clear how much is autobiographical truth or embellishment, but Betts doesn’t shy away from delivering some dark reminiscences. It is not always comfortable. A meandering stream of consciousness as the show weaves in and out of the realms of fantasy. So much so that it often feels like two unrelated pieces that have converged into an oddly mismatched whole.

But Betts, in a flowing, gothic black dress, is a striking presence. She delivers her story at the piano while, under her schoolmistress like gaze, Antonia Richards relives her younger self. Something happened when she was seven years old. We don’t learn the true, dark nature of this until the end; a finale we are led towards, step by step through songs of innocence and experience. Richards depicts credibly a personality trying to maintain the veneer that everything is still okay (“I was every parent’s dream”) while clearly a childhood has been stolen, and the steps into adulthood are carved in the precipice of self-destruction. As she teeters, losing balance, you almost believe the lie when she repeatedly calls out that “you can’t touch me – I feel nothing”.

Helen Goldwyn’s staging reflects this split personality. One minute ethereal, the next profanely harsh. Some beautiful projected animation draws us in while less successful attempts at audience participation push us away again. Only when Betts sings are we truly rooted. She becomes majestic at the piano, her fragile melodies accompanying her delicately beautiful voice. Unique and melancholic, her songs are dark folk tales in themselves, cinematic in scope but with the intimacy of a campfire. We are seduced but there is always a danger of being burned. No more so than during the closing number “The Rose” with its award-winning animated video projected onto the back wall. The lyrics are the blueprint for this show, the aching melody is the texture that emblazons the outline.

It is a gorgeous moment, but the progression there is uneven. Yet we learn a lot on the way, and are exposed to many important questions of abuse, grooming, body-shaming, gaslighting, coercion, addiction, self-harm, self-esteem. The narrative doesn’t so much touch on these as delivers a punch. But sometimes the swing misses, and the presentation is jarring. To her credit, Betts doesn’t try to supply the answers. “There is no judgement here”. Yet the lack of resolve is a little confusing, and the curtain call suffused with doubt, which we can see written on the performers faces. Is Little Red Riding Hood out of the woods or is the wolf still on her tail?

But “Dark Nature” is a theatrical journey worth taking, if not for Betts’ haunting presence as a singer songwriter. It is the music that truly touches, and lingers into the night. And, of course, the voice.

Dark Nature

★★★

Canal Café Theatre

DARK NATURE at the Canal Café Theatre

★★★

“But Betts, in a flowing, gothic black dress, is a striking presence”