Comedy isn’t jokes and wit; it’s how we get through every day. We laugh at ourselves and the world, so we can cope with the tedious and the unbearable. It’s why we hear great jokes at funerals and why there’s always some humour in great art. There is a lot of humour in
Blood, but the laughs are sometimes misplaced and take us away from the story by reminding us that it’s all a game of pretend, rather than giving us the breathing space to cope with the anticipation of the horror that’s to come. This style of humour works best when we are laughing only to stop ourselves from running or puking and the cast may need to tone down some of the comedy in order to make the laughs awkward and uncomfortable.
Watson, Alison Adriano, Chloé Boreham, Jon Peck, James Tresise and Kassandra Whitson are all strong performers who understand the nuances and guts of Blood, but they are not always compelling because they are bringing us the text and the plot, rather than letting us see the stories about people discovering the unimaginable.
One of the strengths of the script is that is brings the hidden blood of the torture room to our everyday world. As the audience know what’s in the appendage-sized packages, the middle scenes have to be about the people who discover the packages. To sustain the gut-churning emotion of the opening, we have to care as much about every character as we do about the woman being tortured. Complete and complex people need to be on the stage, so that instead of asking why on earth the woman doesn’t just walk away from the world’s most annoying man, we’re wanting two damaged souls to find love on that park bench and wondering how the discovery of an amputated finger is going to change their chances.
Theatre is moments of change. Each character is a different person at the end of their scene and showing more of that change, and more of lightness before the dark, will bring the empathy and closeness that will leave the audience unable to breathe.
The
Blood text also suffers from a very literal English translation, to the point that words and phrases received giggles simply because they didn’t sound right to the audience or feel right to the actors. Stage language by its nature is contrived and it’s up to the actors to make it sound like it is the most natural and only logical way that people talk in this world. The language shouldn’t get in the way of what the playwright and creators are saying.
Shows as unnerving as
Blood need to settle and change as audiences react. Having survived its first week, the time to see
Blood is this week; not only because the season ends, but because it will be so much closer to being something you’re unlikely to forget.
Bookings: www.theatreworks.org.au