The Rabbit Hole | Ad Astra
Ad Astra’s The Rabbit Hole is an honest and confronting look at grief and the different ways in which people experience this deeply uncomfortable headspace. It’s an exploration of the rabbit hole that we find ourselves falling down when we’ve lost someone close to our heart.
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If there ever is an emotionally taxing play for actors to perform, it’s this one. A Pulitzer prize winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire, The Rabbit Hole explores the story of Becca (Janelle Bailey) and her husband Howie (Stephen Hirst) as they navigate the grief in the aftermath of the tragic loss of their four year old son. Both characters experience this grief differently, with Becca packaging everything away and trying to distance herself as much as possible and Howie watching old VCR tapes and trying to hold onto whatever is left of his son. Both Bailey and Hirst deliver exceptional, emotionally gut-wrenching performances as their respective characters. Each have a stand-out moment when their grief boils up to the surface and explodes. For Hirst it was when a VRC tape of his son had been taped over and for Bailey it was the though of not selling the house of her memories.
Vanessa Moltzen, who played Issy, a late ’90s rocker chick, brought such levity to a dark script; adding moments of joy, hope and energy to the emotionally deflated scenes. Julie Johnson, brought depth to the overbearing mother archetype as she glided between being supported and suffocating for the two main characters.
Director Mikayla Hosking transformed Ad Astra’s black box theatre into a theatre in the round, with a grieving couple’s living room and kitchen being at the centre. This resulted in the audience being more immersed in that characters’ world and their intense emotional journeys. We couldn’t escape their grief. Instead, we had to feel it and see it reflected on the faces of the audience members across from us.
The Rabbit Hole is a looking glass into the human condition, and we all process the unexpectable grief that often finds itself on our front door. The stagecraft is brilliant, and the writing tells a story of its own.
