“A complete paean to the rough and tumble of daily existence for those whose internal world is at odds with the external one.”
Kate Stratford
4.5 Stars
Venue: New Theatre
Sydney
Dates: Until April 12th
A day in the life. The daily fight of just getting out of bed and surviving the day in order to collapse back into bed at the end. Most people have had those times of struggle. Now layer on dealing with being bi-polar (or any debilitating illness) and the struggle becomes something more than just a metaphor.
Xavier Coy directs his own work Fighting, winner of the 2022 Silver Gull Award. It is a brave move to bare one’s soul so completely for the world to see but that is one of the purposes of art, isn’t it? Think of all the glorious music and visual art that drags complicated human experience out of the shadows, gives it (and us) a shake and demands attention. How much richer we are for that refusal to ignore the inconvenience of being human.
And how fortuitous for Coy to have secured Jay James-Moody to play Character A – the human sufferer. James-Moody’s virtuosity as a performer brings all the confusion, despair, hope and humour of the character to life. He is faultlessly supported by Sophie Highmore (Character B) and David Woodland (Character C) who are the voices in the head and the various people Character A encounters in the course of his working day. Their subtle physical and vocal shifts clearly delineate who they are at any given moment. It was a clever choice for Coy to make – to have Highmore and Woodland play all the voices Character A has to deal with. These three give a performance which defines the ability to act down to the tips of one’s fingers and toes. It would have been easier – and less demanding – to have another two actors play the external characters but nowhere as effective or engaging. This way, we are left in no doubt of the exhausting conflict of differentiating between external and internal voices.
Robin Legal’s lighting design assists in placing us in either the internal and external world and Mehran Mortezaei’s sound underscores the feelings of self-loathing and themes of the piece. As usual, Tom Bannerman delivers a set which perfectly sets mood and provides an ideal space for players to work in. A complete paean to the rough and tumble of daily existence for those whose internal world is at odds with the external one.
For some, life is indeed, a battlefield.
Photos @ Chris Lundie
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
