Crew and Creatives
Cast
Theatre
A incoherent story set in 4 different time periods about a woman with powers. Sigh. I wish loved it because it had so much potential from the elaborate effects to the acting - the only thing missing was the it factor that ultimately made me not care for the piece overall.
It starts with a Victorian medium adopting The woman (Sadie? Brooke? The protagonist) to help her with her spiritual endeavours. There is instantly conflict between Sadie and the mediums son, which makes this grown man look pathetic and childish; going to the extent of ripping apart a teddy Sadie uses to comfort herself even though he knows she comes from a potentially traumatising background. He is instantly unlikable and when he is attacked it feels like justice has been served.
The first 40 minutes is set up to be a paranormal horror performance with constant mentions of ghosts, performing rituals and scenes of possession. I enjoyed this half of the performance, it was tense when it needed to be, the projections of fire and water slowly exposed the past of Sadie and draws the audience in and the flashing lights work to create a stop-motion, old-school-horror possession and fight scenes. This unfortunately stops towards the end when the medium crushes Sadie's hand which glows and heals before she grasps the full extent of her power and send a knight ghost from the past to behead the medium. I was confused. Is she still possessed and gained the ability to materialise ghosts to do her misdeeds? Is she a witch?
To end the act she lets out a demonic scream with flames projected around her akin to a badly edited, low budget horror movie from the early 2000s. I can see what they were trying to do... but I would leave that out of the script next time.
The second half of the performance jumps between 300,000 BC to 1348 AD to 1979 and finally 1993 in a seemingly random manner. The 1348 AD storyline follows a defeated knight kidnapping Sadie, now known as The Woman or Brooke, to give her to the king who believes he can use her superpowers for himself. They travel together and it is revealed that the folk legend about the woman who doesn't need sleep, food and never dies is about her. Gasp. So she is not possessed - she is just really old with PTSD. This is a flashback, I get it.
When her kidnapper-turned-friend gets stabbed she time travels him to the 1990s to get him medical attention.
So she is an immortal time traveller with the ability to transport anyone she pleases with her. This revelation completely ruins the structure of the whole performance: is Sadie-Brooke-Woman just time travelling to tell us her story? Does she go back in time to relive her traumatic past since she is able to travel to the future and live an obviously more comfortable life? Are these just flashbacks? If so, how can she go into the future? I am confused. Like a lot.
It all ends with the knight hiding Sadie in a cave because he is dying and wants to protect her as she confesses her love for him. Cute I guess.
The 1979 sub-story is about a historian, Evan, helping Sadie remember her past and used mostly as an exposition tool for the audience to understand how deep the lore goes. The character is really funny and very of his time, he is quirky and light hearted which makes it even sadder when we find out that he is the dead son of the nurse we meet in the 1990 segments.
Speaking of, the 1990 scenes focus on the growing relationship between a retired nurse, Ellen, and Sadie as she fills the void left by her dead son by allowing a strange, young woman to live with her. She is a sweet, comic relief character used to add yet another plot to a story that doesn't make much sense. In her final scene Sadie does the time-travelling-with-people thing and reunites her with her dead son - I'm no physicist but I'm pretty sure that breaks some kind of time paradox. At this point I have accepted that nothing needs to make sense and if you use pretty light and projections no one will notice.
The final scene is a monologue where Sadie survives the end of the world and just floats in space until the world is reborn again. Her hand glows again. Yeah I accept defeat.
Its such a shame this turned out the way it did because the cast was so talented, the budget was clearly there and the bones of the play make for an interesting tale about an immortal woman having to watch everyone around her die and the trauma that comes with having such powers. I wish they had committed fully to either the Horror or sci-fi genres. It was a good attempt though.
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