FringeReview UK 2024
The Bleeding Tree
Jessie Anand
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Feminist Theatre, International, Mainstream Theatre, Short Plays, Theatre, World Theatre
Venue: Southwark Playhouse Little Studio, Borough
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
“Girls, I think your father’s dead.” “I knocked his knees out.” “I conked his head.” “I shot that house clown in the neck.” That’s one mother and her two daughters and this is, in part, a verse-play. Angus Cerini’s acclaimed The Bleeding Tree, premiered in Sydney in 2015, now has its UK premiere at the Southwark Playhouse Little Studio, directed by Sophie Drake till June 22nd.
A blood-dark gem.
Directed by Sophie Drake, Set and Costume Designer Jasmine Swan, Movement Director Iskandar إسكندر R. Sharazuddin, Lighting Designer Ali Hunter, Composer and Sound Designer Asaf Zohar,
Casting Director Fran Cattaneo, Associate Set and Costume Designer Bethan Wall,
Producer Jessie Anand, Graphic Design Madison Coby Studios, Production Manager Adam Jeffreys, Stage Manager Honor Klein, Assistant Producer Charlotte Vickers
Set Construction and Art SAS Works, Marketing Cup of Ambition, Press and PR Chloe Nelkin Consulting, Graphic Design Martha Hegarty, Rehearsal Photography Jye Currie, Production Photography Lidia Crisafulli, Promotional Videography Erica Belton with Matt Tarn
Till June 22nd
Review
“Girls, I think your father’s dead.” “I knocked his knees out.” “I conked his head.” “I shot that house clown in the neck.” That’s one mother and her two daughters and this is, in part, a verse-play. Angus Cerini’s acclaimed The Bleeding Tree, premiered in Sydney in 2015, now has its UK premiere at the Southwark Playhouse Little Studio, directed by Sophie Drake till June 22nd.
A shot rings out and no-one else hears it. “There’s a delicious bloody prize for the beatings.” The remaining family elect shared responsibility for killing a man whose last act was just one more abusive weal. The neighbours’ discovery though is what they fear. The Bleeding Tree won the prestigious Griffin award and two others.
Over 65 minutes the pace intensifies and relaxes; but builds, like a Greek tragedy though the catharsis is more like the end of the Eumenides, with Orestes vindicated. Here, perhaps, the Eumenides haunt themselves and have to call on their own judgement.
Adamantine Mum (Mariah Gale), rational Ida (Elizabeth Dulau) and reflective Ada (Alexandra Jensen) act as a trinity of resolve, jubilation, a frisson of terror; and in Gale’s case too, moments of regret: at what this costs, of other moments. Moving in unison or as a knot that relaxes and tightens, they act like a chorus in Iskandar إسكندر R. Sharazuddin’s movement direction.
They’re also a chorus of others, a voice thrown amongst each in turn. Mr Jones the arriving neighbour who suggests what might have happened to the unlamented man, whilst accidentally kicking his exposed leg. Possibly a man discovered hanging by a tree, eaten. Mrs Smith does the same, bringing a whip-round for the family. But what will postie-cum-constable Stephens do? He’s got too sharp an eye to seem equivocal, and things are out of hand. But then there’s his dog Blue, and that dog has a tale and a morality that might yet decide things.
Beyond the honourable tradition of Australian gothic, think that scene in Titus Andronicus with a just-possibly happy ending. The very last – for some shocking – moment really depends on your point of view. Yet it seems precisely right in its benediction of “amends” and was something you’ve sensed might happen.
Red outback sand along a floor that rises ominously behind, allows Jasmine Swan’s stark nightmare of a set its bleached simplicity. It’s aided by her dungaree unform costumes for the daughters, and Ali Hunter’s lighting with an economy of gesture. Which can seem miraculously spectral. But even this is pared back. The squinty beating sun is relentless. Asaf Zohar’s sounds and music beat on silence, isolation that might yet be coming to an end.
This verse-writing doesn’t draw attention to itself, uses enjambments an is often broken. But its effect is of a ritual cleansing, a litanic purging of abuse step by step.
Gale is particularly striking in flinching at memories that weren’t uniformly evil: very few from her honeymoon onwards, but enough, a moment of physical admiration, or of intimacy, even forced intimacy, allows Gale’s Mum to turn on herself so rational Ida can state: “She’s away with the fairies”. But Gale steps out of that distrait retreat and faces herself full on.
The two sisters are intentionally almost identical, in both names and clothing. But there’s flecks of difference. Dulau is memorable in taking the rational lead, whilst Jensen as her more emotionally suggestive sister Ida takes on early fear and imagines consequences to the horizon. They’re all compelling. Cited as an Australian classic in the making, this might suggest nine years on, it’s made. A blood-dark gem.
