Tag Archives: Pleasance Courtyard

Love (Watching Madness)

★★★

Pleasance Courtyard

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LOVE (Watching Madness)

Love (Watching Madness)

Pleasance Courtyard

Reviewed – 5th August 2019

★★★

 

“feels a bit like a rough draft: brimming with potential, just in need of some shaping and smoothing”

 

Isabelle Kabban’s solo show about growing up with a mother with bipolar disorder is an intense, piercingly honest look at the way mental illness affects families. Framed as a session with her therapist, Kabban recounts a series of scenes from her childhood in an attempt to make sense of them. Directed by Ruth Anna Phillips and produced by Speak Up Theatre, Love (Watching Madness), if a bit rough around the edges, is an authentic and incisive look at bipolar disorder.

Kabban brings intensity and great depth of emotion to her performance. Her examination of her relationship with her mother is adeptly both compassionate and unsparing. Kabban’s writing acknowledges the complexity of its subject. Too often mental illness is dismissed with shallow, stigmatised representation. Kabban smashes stereotypes in giving us a nuanced, three-dimensional portrayal of her mother.

The show is raw and chaotic. It’s messy, which could be an intentional choice by Kabban and Phillips to reflect the theme of madness, but it might be too much so. At times hard to follow, Love (Watching Madness) feels a bit like a rough draft: brimming with potential, just in need of some shaping and smoothing. Differentiating the voices – mother and daughter – would go a long way in helping the audience get a better grip on what’s being communicated. The effort required to figure out who is talking distracts from the performance. A change in posture, voice timbre, or body language would help clarify the story. The moments of dancing with strobe lights create an interesting aesthetic, but their purpose is uncertain. The choppy, scattered nature of the memories make the action difficult to track, and Kabban’s intensity hinders the humour in certain lines.

Although the show could benefit from further development, it contains more than a few gems. “I used to think if I became really successful it would fix her,” Kabban says. “I used to think people would do anything for the ones they love. Now I know that’s not true.” She self-flagellates, hitting her thighs and hands together with bruising force, repeating, “How can I fix you? You can’t.” Kabban repeatedly delivers these moments of searing insight, brutal honesty, and complete devastation. They hit hard and leave a lasting impression.

SpeakUp Theatre is on a vital mission to break down stigma surrounding mental illness. Kabban has created a show many will relate to, and many will walk away from with deeper understanding. The world needs to hear more of these stories. We’re lucky to have artists like Kabban and Bryony Kimmings, who are capable and willing to articulate the most incomprehensible of human experiences. They share their pain so we can feel less of ours.

 

Reviewed by Addison Waite

Photography by Ruth Phillips

 


Love (Watching Madness)

Pleasance Courtyard until 26th August as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019

 

 

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Algorithms

★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard

Reviews, , , , , , ,

Algorithms

Pleasance Courtyard

Reviewed – 31st July 2019

★★★★

 

“a bold and exciting work that holds an important message of self-acceptance”

 

‘Algorithms’, both written and performed by Sadie Clark and directed by Madelaine Moore, is a one woman show following Brooke, a newly single, bisexual woman as she approaches her thirtieth birthday.

The play covers a variety of events during the weeks nearing Brooke’s birthday. It becomes clear that things are not going the way she wants them to when her girlfriend doesn’t return home from drinks at the local pub. When she does return, Brooke is brutally told that the relationship simply does not work, and she is brokenhearted. As the story goes on, she signs up for the dating website that she works for to meet new people so as to distract both from the breakup and the dreaded party her mother is throwing for her birthday.

There’s an impressive change in Brooke from the beginning of the play to the end, as she comes to terms with herself and begins to accept that she isn’t always the problem in relationships and work environments. An important moment shared between Brooke and her mother at the end of the play sets alight a new aspiration in the young woman – ‘you be you’. Sadie Clark portrays her beautifully, with her emotions being so sincere when Brooke is at her lowest points, giving a realistic view on how many women deal with such events. She has the audience roaring with laughter as she prances and screams, but also has them drawn in and emotional as she dressed herself in a ball gown.

The stage design is perfect for the performance, and every little detail is superb. There was golden boxes that matched the golden shoes Brooke wears throughout the play, and there were balloons in purple, pink and blue, which describe her sexuality to a very fine detail. At the back of the stage is a clothes hanger with a dress bag hanging on it, which hides a beautiful gown until it was time for Brooke to wear it. However, there was very little use of these objects throughout the play, which allowed all attention to be on the actress.

Music was used for comic purposes as Brooke danced across the stage to songs that had lyrics explaining her situation perfectly. Sadie had the audience participating and clapping along with the music as they exited the venue.

‘Algorithms’ is a bold and exciting work that holds an important message of self-acceptance, especially for older women who believe they are not achieving what they should be at their age and emphasises the importance of accepting yourself and others around you in your daily lives.

 

Reviewed by Sara McPhail

Photography by Ali Wright

 


Algorithms

Pleasance Courtyard until 26th August as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019

 

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com