This is great fun and seriously thought-provoking.
It’s also incredibly difficult to write about without breaking the spoiler rule.
Freddy is finishing his HSC and is about to turn eighteen. Liv, his sibling, has come home from overseas to help him celebrate. But his parents, Beth and Jim, are worried about Freddy’s behaviour – though it’s not like they have everything worked out themselves.
None of that is spoiler material, but the very kernel of the piece is dependent on the withholding of information. The nature of Freddy’s problem is only fully clarified at the play’s resolution. Stories that withhold information have dangers: some audience members clock what’s going on immediately and lose interest, others only understand in the final moments and so become frustrated long before that.
Written by Daniel Cottier and directed by Benjamin Brockman, this piece avoids these pitfalls by its humour, deeply humane vision and wonderful performances.
Nicholas Cradock’s Freddy is a moving portrait of a troubled soul. Nyx Calder as Liv delivers sharp one liners marvellously, but also gives a rich characterisation of caring sibling and angry child. Hester van der Vyver as Beth and Richard Hillair as Jim are hilarious as they work the satire of early middle-aged myopia, but when things get genuinely confronting, they subtlety move to truthful performances of perplexed but heartfelt concern. When the full extent of Freddy’s pain is revealed, van der Vyver’s reaction of bewildered vulnerability is absolutely magnificent
I don’t think I’m giving away too much to say Freddy has mental health issues.
Voice over is used to suggest Freddy suffers from intrusive thoughts. It’s a bold decision. Drama always struggles to present the inner experience of its characters. We guess at a character’s inner world from their words and actions, but as in Life, we can’t really get inside. The Elizabethans invented the soliloquy to try to solve the problem – but it’s only a partial solution, privileging a character’s deliberate, articulated thoughts rather than the ever-changing whirlwind of interiority. The VO powerfully underlines that Freddy is a victim of thoughts he can’t control, but each time it’s used it threatens to pull us out of the world of the play. Why can we hear his voices while his Mum, Dad and sibling can’t? (Yes, I know, the characters don’t hear the soundscape either – but then none of them do.) This VO technique has been used in other productions to create humour – it sets up that expectation – but I was glad it wasn’t employed that way here. What Cottier is exploring is too important for that.
Freddy can’t control his thoughts – and control is a theme that weaves through the piece.
Consider his parents. Mum wants to control Freddy’s study habits and places unneeded pressure on him by repeatedly asserting he will be school dux. Dad wants Freddy to leave his room, to get out and do stereotypical-straight-male-teenager-sort-of-things. Like Mum’s demands, it’s good-natured, but it highlights that teenagers must perpetually navigate parental expectations.
And the younger generation don’t get off unscathed. There’s a poke at their desire to control in the quip They care about everything, that’s why they’re all so depressed.
Chilled Liv seems able to transcend the temptation of control, but even they, in the inevitable argument with Mum about personal pronouns, falls back on But I want you to call me that!
So, what about the focus of the piece? Freddy’s condition? Is this also ultimately about seeking control? His cure obviously is; he needs to get back control of his own thoughts.
But what about the condition itself? Is there an element of control-seeking in his behaviour? On the simplest level, I don’t think this play says so; it’s too beautifully empathetic. But its presentation of poor teenage Freddy’s suffering is so powerful that it becomes apparent that his desire to keep it all to himself is part of what prevents him finding relief.
The piece is a gorgeously gentle, generous-spirited reminder to talk about it, to seek help.
Paul Gilchrist
Occasional Combustible Disaster by Daniel Cottier
At the Loading Dock, Qtopia, until 10 Aug.
Image by Phil Erbacher
Theatre Red 