The details of the plot remain largely similar to Bergman’s original film, which has been translated for the stage by Keith Bradfield. Meredith Penman plays Elizabeth, a beautiful, successful actress with a loving husband and small boy, who inexplicably falls mute one night following a performance of Elektra. She is sent to recuperate at a summerhouse with only her nurse Alma (Karen Sibbing) for company. Alma fills the silence left by the unspeaking Elizabeth with her own chatter which slowly moves from inanity to searing revelation, eventually breaking through to the heart of Elizabeth’s own misery.
There’s a beauty to Jacobs’ direction, which shifts the action easily from deep in the stage to uncomfortably close proximities. As the play unfolds on an expanse of the too-white floor, broken up by the blonde wood set and eerie white curtains, the placement of the actors creates an unnerving sense of shifting perspective, like a lens moving in and out of focus. It’s a beautiful technique that captures some of the strangeness of Bergman’s film, but in a manner that takes advantage of the immediacy of theatre.
Penman and Sibbing are perfectly cast as these two damaged women. Sibbing, charged with the majority of the play’s lines, is wonderfully awkward as Alma, and her lanky, ruddy frame and fuss-free appearance is a good foil for Penman’s lush physique. Having to communicate largely through non-verbal means gives Penman’s range an opportunity to shine, and her performance of Elizabeth is riveting in its brokenness.
Despite the age of its source material, Persona feels incredibly relevant, even timeless. The original film was released in 1966, but thematically, the central ideas stand up incredibly well, particularly regarding the conflict between the personal and societal desires of women. Given that modern-day media is seemingly obsessed with what women should or shouldn’t want, particularly regarding motherhood, marriage and sexuality, the dilemmas faced by Elizabeth and Alma feel horribly familiar. The faultlines in these characters may have been committed to paper in a script written over forty years ago, but they feel startlingly, almost horrifyingly fresh.
Persona is beautifully realized and impeccably created, building on the issues raised by the original film but presenting them in a fashion uniquely optimized for the stage.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Persona
Based on the film by Ingmar Bergman
Translated by Keith Bradfield
Conceived and adapted by Adena Jacobs, Dayna Morrissey and Danny Pettingill
Directed by Adena Jacobs
Performed by Karen Sibbing, Meredith Penman and Daniel Schlusser
Set and Costume: Dayna Morrissey
Lighting Design: Danny Pettingill
Theatre Works, St Kilda
May 19 – 27
