Music – Griffin Independent and Stories Like These

Overview

Jane Bodie understands mental illness. She doesn’t exploit it for the sake of dramatic impact; she doesn’t romanticise the links between suffering and art. But her characters do.

Music, which is making its world premiere at the Stables, could only have been written by someone with intimate knowledge of what it means to live with an unstable mind.

“My brother was my hero for most of my childhood,” Brodie writes in the program liner notes. “As an unfeasibly good looking, cool teenager, he began to suffer from a mental illness, tragically pulling the family apart and bringing us back together.” Even though she firmly states, “The play is not about my brother, or a commentary on a specific illness,” there’s no doubt that her personal experience illuminates this sensitive, intricate and truthful work.

Adam (Anthony Gee) lives alone in a small, dishevelled studio (skilfully designed for the Stables’ tiny stage by Pip Runciman). Surrounded by piles of letters and unwashed dishes, he spends his time wearing trackies, overcooking one-minute meals and listening to cassettes. Enter Gavin (Tom Stokes) and Sarah (Kate Skinner), two actors working on a play about mental illness and hoping to “study” Adam.

Just how much “study” they have to do becomes painfully evident. Ignorant of the achingly narrow line between health and sickness, focused on their own 'art' and "fascinated”, they don’t hesitate to throw themselves into Adam’s life. The results are torturously unpredictable.

Under the perceptive direction of Corey McMahon, Gee brings a powerful authenticity to an incredibly demanding role, traversing warmth, humour and explosive anger without losing us for a second. Stokes is a suitably self-obsessed yet well-meaning and potentially not-so-stable Gavin, while Skinner nails Sarah, oscillating from gregarious frivolity to fear. Sam O’Sullivan delivers a subtle and convincing interpretation of Adam’s long-standing and more knowing friend, Tom.

Then, of course, there’s the soundtrack. The Clash and Siouxsie and The Banshees tell the story every bit as much as the words do.

Image by Kurt Sneddon.