Image: Keagan Vaskess, Nicola Bowman and Emma Hoy in Alexithymia. Photo (c) Pippa Samaya.
Tom Middleditch has written and co-produced an exciting new work called Alexithymia for Citizen Theatre and A_tistic for the third annual Poppyseed Theatre Festival. Middleditch’s writing is muscular, funny, ironic, moving, multi-faceted. It provides a rich canvas with which the neuro-diverse cast and creative team of Alexithymia can play in the world of naming (and not knowing how to name) complex emotions and states of being we all struggle to define but are often medically forced to do. The writing creates a thrilling phenomenological – or lived experience, passage of rites for the so called ‘neurotypical’ audience members to understand how those with Alexithymia might act, but also, asks them to consider their own responses when encouraged to experience ‘autistic thinking’.
The performance space for part one: Social_function.exe is colour coded with strong primary colours and the lighting and soundscape net the audience’s attention with an evocative simulation of electric currents in the brain that seem much like synaptic fireflies in the dark. At the same time while we also hear the slight echo of an empty space mixed with white noise. There’s a swift transition to the narrative of a young woman played by Nicola Bowman, who designs a device to help her achieve the correct answers and make the correct (Myers & Briggs-like professional type) responses in a stress-inducing job interview. For someone who struggles to conform to societal expectations of how to manage one’s feelings it’s highly comical, moving and frustrating all at the same time as we watch her fall further and further down the rabbit hole. Her co-performers continually grilling her with appropriately banal questions with ersatz confidence.
The game show elements of part two: The Curious Case of You are less successful. It’s a gaudy and grating spectacle as most quiz shows are designed to be, and the questions certainly defined the limitations of what it is possible to be feeling when you have an emotional response to something that is either correct or, incorrect. (But it was overplayed and made a serious misstep in asking rhetorical questions that the audience were not required to answer.) I understood this to be the failure in transitioning the highly effective writing into physical performance in time and space. The repetition surprisingly failed the narrative on several fronts – even with the groovy sounds from Les Baxter style Latin interludes punctuating the answers host Emma Hoy gave her actors to perform. The teasing suggestion of audience participation was also confusing. Even if it was an intentional rupturing of perceptual boundaries it bored, rather than alienated, or intrigued me. Why include a ‘hunger tag’ under one woman’s chair if you aren’t going to include other audience members in the discourse? I looked around expectantly for someone to engage me and introduce me to the non-narrative physical aspects of how Alexithymia works. It never happened. It needed a much stronger dramaturgical hand to bring the writing to its apotheosis.
Part three asks what it would be like to have no desires, and if that state equates with a form of nirvana or in fact being ‘mentally ill’. Nirvana Syndrome created growing neurological lapses in which to explore ‘speculative” conflict. The actors were for the most part very good but the performances were uneven. Nicola Bowman shone as the leader and sustained each character she played with a finely balanced emotional integrity. Keagan Vaskess was very strong early on but needed much firmer direction for part three – even when displaying no desire in Nirvana Syndrome. The alienating effect was at times too subtle and got lost in a mélange of style over substance. It’s one thing to ask your audience to be alienated, or specifically discourage empathy with an actors plight and quite another to confuse theatrical meanings and styles. At times I felt as though I was watching a series of drama game workshopping and the transitions signalled with Hildegard of Bingen type recordings were too frequently employed and became irritating. There was a lot of movement but it was staid and predictable. Emma Hoy was suitably over the top as the game show host but needed more performance depth and character nuance in part three.
Nevertheless, this is groundbreaking work and deserves a wide audience so take a risk and go. It requires some deep thinking and I liked the complex provocations it posed. My wish for Citizen Theatre and A_tistic is that they continue to refine their theatrical collaborations for maximum audience engagement and continue to explore the fine critical elements of their work.
Star rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Alexithymia
Poppyseed Theatre Festival
Citizen Theatre and A_tistic
8-19 November at Meat Market Stables North Melbourne
Writer and co-producer: Tom Middleditch
Director and co-producer: Jayde Kirchert
Visual Designer and co-producer: Stu Brown
Dramaturge: James Matthews
Sound designer: Phillip Dallas
Lighting designer: Peter Amesbury
Production assistant: Jacinta Anderson
Performers: Nicola Bowman, Keagan Vasskess and Emma Hoy
