Anatomy of a Suicide | Metro Arts and BC Productions Qld
White curtains, simple staging with complex moving parts and competing storylines. Anatomy of a Suicide addresses intergenerational trauma and then seeks to ask the question, ’Is mental health a mechanism of nurture or nature or both?’ Directed by Catarina Hebbard, with Alice Birch as playwright, the story is focusses on three generations of women and their relationships, including partners – loving, cold, indignant and overbearing, intrusive and often frustrating family members, insensitive friends and the medical profession. The script weaves in and out of sync whilst three storylines are unravelling at once. Where does one look? How do they link? Who is that character now? This show forces you to stay focused, alert, overwhelmed and silenced whilst each character explores their own tension, grief and loss.
The main narrative is how tragedy impacts generations, demonstrated by the connection between women and their love for their children. For me, the highlight of the show was an interplay of three scenes, with two characters dominating two of the three storylines – a tell-all reveal of Anna’s (Rebecca Alexander) drug addiction whilst her mother Carol (Elise Grieg) in a fetal position on a hospital bed sobbing about her baby Anna, even though both actors are scripted separately, the emotional connection in one of the most powerful scenes I have witnessed. This scene was raw, palpable and painful, and the two actors join in a crescendo consumed in anguish – the daughter battling with her own trauma alongside her mother in two separate points in time.
This is where I felt the script was strong. However, halfway through, I struggled with the complexity of different actors playing the same character. There was a plot twist of who was related to who or how they knew each other confused me, as there were multiple actors playing the same character and I was trying to keep up with the three storylines running at once.
Was it necessary to maintain this throughout the entire show? Did the swapping of characters carry the plot as well as the other actors who had lived experience of the themes their character portrayed? Where does embodiment come into play here and where do the notions of mental illness and their symptoms draw influence from? How did the audience self-relate to swaying between fiction and reality and what label or condition are the symptoms relating to? These questions remain questions for me - even though I ask these questions the stark reality is it is in truth, a representation on the uneasiness of the institutional medical model of treating mental illness – therapies, shock treatment, family intervention and isolation.
On the other side of this was lots of humour – raw, gritty and on point. The script pushed my boundaries of themes I would internalise, because I felt it would be seen as taboo or insensitive to be lighthearted about them, however this is what was great and I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of the script. I loved Triana Giles as the unapologetically questioning Daisy and Jo (Jodie Le Vesconte)’s carefree manner with Bonny (Zoe Houghton), which manages to disarm Bonny’s troubled waters. There are relatable moments for everyone, for parents, siblings and just being a part of a family, dating and various social gatherings as part of life.
The characterization presents so many great archetypes and their various attachment styles i.e. the bitchy high school friend who shows her jealousy ending up going for a pash or the husband who doesn’t know how to deal with his wives denial of her fluctuating mental health. These and many of the scenes weave together to present an important show in a time where we need more conversation and understanding of how mental illness deeply affects families intergenerationally.
Anatomy of a Suicide traverses the depths of the human psyche, of the seen and unseen through revelations that are confrontational or present us with choices that we may or may not need to make. When we are alone, or in the company of others, who do we ask and how do we solve our internal deliberations? We are bound by the nature of our human condition in a world not often conducive to dealing with the impacts on our mental health. As Bonny says in the show “I need to know where it ends”.
Anatomy of a Suicide plays until the 29 May at Metro Arts, West End. All images by Nick Morrissey - Photographer.
