POV is re:group performance collective’s newest experimental production which teeters on the edge of cinema and theatre. 11-year-old Bub (Mabelle Rose or Edie Whitehead, depending on the night of the performance) uses her passion for documentary filmmaking to navigate difficult and unravelling family dynamics. The young actor is joined by two unrehearsed adult actors playing her parents, Michael and Penny. The catch: Bub has different co-stars each performance. The premise is fertile ground for great comedy and a showcasing of the actors’ impressive improvisational skills. Throughout the play’s fast-paced 60-minute run time, I found myself swinging on the pendulum of laughter and tears, driven by the script’s impeccable pace.
This metatheatrical docudrama explores the experience of a mother’s fluctuating mental health, due to her bipolar disorder, through Bub’s eyes. The adults are guided to re-enact Bub’s personal experiences in order to better understand them, allowing her to exert temporary control over her narrative. The camera is the fourth character on stage, acting as Bub’s metatheatrical authority and point of view. We come to love Bub’s parents precisely because we are given privy to Bub’s perspective, not just our own.
The adult actors on opening night, Tom Conroy and Vaishnavi Suryaprakash, were outstanding. They seamlessly transitioned between emotionally contrasting scenes, creating salient moments that melted into reality so impeccably that I often would forget it was improvised, until Bub yelled “cut”. Each adult occupied the dual roles of actor and parent — teetering on the edge of fabricated performance and authentic experience – as exemplified by Vaishnavi’s humorous improvised question: “Am I answering your question as myself or as your mum?”. The unrehearsed actors may also act as a metatheatrical mirror of the improvisatory nature of parenthood. They deconstruct the idea of preparation and rehearsal; there is no read-through of life, especially for being a parent.
The creative team (Mark Rogers, Solomon Thomas, Malcom Whittaker, Steve Wilson-Alexander and Carly Young) displayed brilliant inventiveness. The variety with which the adult actors received their lines and directions rescued the play from feeling like an extended improv-class. They were fed lines from the child actor, found scripts that were cleverly planted in the set design, read text on screens, and received in-ear prompting. This foresight allowed the unrehearsed actors to play a key and purposeful role in the comedic drive of the play, as well as execute the metatheatrical purpose of the play’s content. The stage design also made the most of the stage, such as the doubling of a camera dolly as train tracks. It is notable that despite the show’s fast-paced run time, the creative team would choose to suspend audiences and actors — waiting for a polaroid to develop, and waiting for an air mattress to inflate — in moments of deliberate contemplation.
The play interrogates assumptions of childrens’ incapacity to deal with difficult conversations, displaying a parent’s protective urges as instead obscuring necessary truths. The child is given authority as the metatheatrical director of the docudrama, and literal director of the adult actors: feeding them lines, directing the end of a scene by yelling “cut”, and moving props on stage. Rose wielded this power with unwavering professionality, unflinchingly directing the experienced actors. The play meditated on the damaging effects of sheltering children from difficult truths, and how forcing them to wade through the incomprehensible mud of the “adult” themes of poor mental health, bipolar disorder, and marital arguments leaves children lonely.
The production stands on its own, which is commendable considering POV is staged by Belvoir Theatre’s 25A initiative, where independent productions are challenged to a budget shy of $2500. 25A’s fruitful result once again highlights the importance of giving a platform to independent theatre and its unique innovation.
The irreplicability of the show is perhaps its most remarkable aspect. The intimate audience is witness to an ephemeral display of emotion, invention and dialogue. It recalled a pre-digital viewing experience, especially given theatres are one of the only public spaces where recording is prohibited.
I failed to have dry eyes by the end of the play. Its novelty, successful experimentation, surprising humour, and empathetic staging of the complexity in parental relationships make it one of the best plays I have watched this year. I was left with an understanding of the salient importance of talking to children frankly about mental health, even — and especially — when it is difficult to do so.
POV plays from 28 May – 16 June 2024 at the Belvoir St Theatre. Tickets can be found here.
