Inside Out
Inside Out at the Seymour Centre to May 30; independent producer CDP plans to tour the play nationally in 2010, check www.cdp.com.au for details
Mary Rachel Brown won the 2008 Rodney Seaborn Award last year for this play and no wonder. At 90 intense, funny, dramatic, illuminating minutes, it is a pocket rocket of meaningful, gutsy, important theatre.
The play is exceedingly well served by two compelling performances: Lindsay Farris as young art student Simon, and Tracey Mann as his mother, Sue. The team behind the play also deserve mention: dramaturge Campion Decent and the original director and dramaturge (when it was titled 1 in 100), Carol Woodrow. She withdrew suddenly through illness and Tom Healey took over as director ¬ and has done a fine job. Fine work too from set designer Imogen Keen, lighting designer Nicholas Higgins and sound designer Kimmo Vennonen.
Inside Out is about a scourge that has, for many years been either invisible or ignored, misunderstood and reviled. It is, of course, schizophrenia and, as the program notes state “at least 1 in 100 people in Australia have schizophrenia, for most it began between 15 and 25 years of age.” This automatically leads to another frightening statistic: “up to one million Australians are directly affected by schizophrenia – as sufferers, family carers or friends.” It’s at this point that the story of Inside Out takes over.
What makes Inside Out so compelling and enjoyable is that it’s ripping entertainment. In less able hands such a subject could so easily be virtuous, gloomy or yukkily sentimental – rather like vile-tasting medicine that you know you ought to take but you also know you’re going to hate. Inside Out couldn’t be further from the theatrical school of Earnest & Worthy and I urge you not to be put off either by fear or determined disinterest.
In essence, Simon is a normal, talented young man with high hopes and ambitions whose world, with his divorced mother, suddenly begins to mysteriously implode. The descent into hell is gradual but inexorable. Because Simon is an artist the shifting sands of his mind are vividly portrayed as rather beautiful but disturbing chalked “art” – all over the house he shares with Sue.
At first she buys, albeit reluctantly, his story that it’s an art school project. But as time goes on, and Simon’s behaviour becomes ever more erratic and alarming, her silent struggle with her own fears and dawning suspicions is palpable. Who wants to admit, even think, that your nearest and dearest is “going crazy”, “going mad”? What is “mad” or “crazy” anyway? Could it simply be teenage angst, or the delayed consequences of the parental split? (He refers to his father as “Mr Divorce”.) Essentially, any answer is preferable to the one that begins to loom.
Mary Rachel Browne researched the play with compassion and meticulous attention to what happens to people in this situation. Some of it is both predictable and unpleasant. Right now there is plenty of evidence in the news of the failings of the emergency systems. Hospitals and call centres are staffed by fallible human beings, some do the job better than others. Some rules and regulations are better than others.
Sue comes up against all the above when she is finally faced with the horrifying reality of Simon’s illness. It’s easy to see how she is seen as the crazy one – the over-protective, anxious, neurotic (choose one) mother. The hysterical, pushy, unhelpful (choose one) bitch. It’s difficult to sit still as she flounders in the miasma of bureaucratic telephone scripts while desperately trying to get help. Meanwhile, Simon teeters helplessly on the brink of disaster.
Inside Out is an important play with its heart and head in all the right places. Farris and Mann are terrific in their roles and it’s an edge-of-your-seat ride to go along with them. They’ve already won fans and audiences in the first season in Albury and will undoubtedly win more when the production goes on tour in the near future. Don’t miss out.
