DramaLondonReview

Psychodrama – Battersea Arts Centre, London

Reviewer: Karl O’Doherty

Writers and Creators: Sleepwalk Collective and Christopher Brett Bailey

Longstanding connoisseurs of Instagram, Twitter, message boards and general internet discourse may get a wicked shock of recognition here. For anyone who struggles to make a joke without the crutch of a pop-culture reference, or passing on a meme – you are seen. Christopher Brett Bailey and iara Solano Arana dive right into our murky minds to expose and pick apart just how much a lifetime of content consumption has affected us as individuals.

This dissection of cartoons, comics, games and cultural artefacts is smarty, funny and just the right amount of weird. But its energy is stolen by a corny, draining layer of fudgy visualisation and psychobabble that really outstays its welcome after an interesting first section.

The intention is clear; we’re to be drawn inside our own minds in an almost dreamlike state to be open and susceptible to the ideas and surreality presented in the main story. It works at first, we’re in the right mental state to properly enjoy the episodic narrative unspooling in a creative, catching and sometimes delightful way. This storytelling amplifies the violence and problems with many of our most cherished cartoons and cultural touchpoints (watch what happens when the pair on stage decide to help the coyote finally murder that innocent roadrunner) forcing us to confront them. Its calm delivery allows some hyperviolent and extremely sexually explicit material to sneak in: an intriguing deception.

Each member of the audience has a set of headphones on, ideal for us to get the full surround-sound of Brett Bailey and Sammy Metcalfe’s sound design. Brett Bailey and Solano Arana’s performance takes place mainly at a desk in front of us where they read out lengths of (compelling and inventive) spoken-word performance material, play cartoonish sound effects, and occasionally get up to add a little action and movement to their wild words. It’s a smart way to do this, reminding us throughout that we’ve been exposed to TV and constructed messages since birth, with occasional breaks into the physical world.

We’re told by Brett Bailey at the start that they have us for 75 minutes. For this show, 75 minutes is just too long. The responsibility is on the production to give an audience reason to be there for the whole length but they let this responsibility lapse long before the end. Once the meat of the story runs out, we’re returned to a meta discussion of how the story will fit, sit, and linger in our brain there’s a noticeable increase in watch checking among the audience. It’s a self-indulgent ending reflecting a high-concept piece of theatre that contains some exhilarating and intelligent sections but not enough to make up for the sins of its exhausting theatrical wrapper.

Runs until 9 April 2022

The Reviews Hub Score

wrapped in a draining layer of psychononsense

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The Reviews Hub - London

The Reviews Hub London is under the acting editorship of Richard Maguire. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.

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