Writer and director Adam O’Brien’s AN. EXORCISM was performed in four spaces separated by curtains and simple lighting, in the Forge warehouse space of the Dire Theatre Company. The show was in an experimental, “chambers” or immersive format that is less seen in current fringe offering and small raked spaces. This immersive production that a tactical, proxemic quality that redefined the nature of intimate theatre, and harked back to experimental shows decades ago when property was less valuable and theatre has more choice of the siting and staging of works.
Adam O’Brien did a commendable and deserving job bringing together the script, director, lighting and set, as well as acting as “The Infection” or demonic quality at play in the young, mentally ill heroine, Eve, played with acute and electric focus by Isabelle Rienits. Aided by Alana Maclean-Dowling, the Infection character was satisfying in vocal constriction as well as physical energy. The voice was roughly synced, and delayed, in quite startling menace.
The plot is a retelling of the well known explanation of mental illness as possession. Father Michael (Feargus Manning) and Dr Lomard (David Rienits) engage in a melodramatic, charged discourse about medical and metaphysical forces at play in Eve. There was yelling in the show, but it was well directed and it worked – possession is no laughing matter. Ashleigh Barton plays out the Eve’s mother with full perturbation and immediacy. Drugs battle it out with an exorcism until the show reaches a compelling ambiguity – Eve has been dying through the play and is said to have died but which Eve dies and which lies.
O’Brien writes a keen, versatile and compelling script, that delivers serious and compelling drama despite the potential of the plot and themes to go belly up into stereotype and cliche. The script has so many asides, details and authenticity, we listen to its rendition. Overall, the audience was fully and quietly engaged – its fly on the wall spectatorial role certainly aided in defining a distinct tone.
The immersive 3D space helped create its own sense of realism and place. Stripped off the structures of traditional theatre design, there was an invoked sense of realism. Where were we? Were we in any way spatially close to actual happenings?
Given this potential for a new found realism, and given the enduring serious debate about drugs and psychiatry, one can wonder about the need to include genre items like the demonic Infection character. A debate between spiritual and medical values is welcome – but perhaps without the literal exorcism apparatus. However even with the plot at it was the show reverberated with contemporary relevance.
Numbers were limited due to the staging (about 30) and with five performance in total one looks forward to a remounting of this innovative and satisfying pro-am piece.
