Half Moon Theatre ****
The title of Dylan Tighe’s remarkable new production suggests a life measured out in documents – from his birth certificate to psychiatric diagnosis, or actor’s showreel to a sheaf of medical prescriptions. But a performance, much like recuperation, requires transformation.
Soon the dry reports of his bipolar disorder, diagnosed in 2004, and his years of treatment become the basis for an imaginative reenactment, using music and mixed media, to create something sharply poignant, politically provocative and deliciously wry. Mining his autobiography for theatrical substance is a brave act, but Tighe’s ability to treat it with a surprisingly light touch seems braver still. Although credited with concept, direction, songs and performance, that tone recognises a subject bigger than himself. In response Tighe has rarely been as funny or calmly considered.
Depression is rendered in deadpan, where Aoife Duffin and Daniel Reardon are introduced to the stage to play fictitious versions of his nurse and psychiatrist, intermingling reality and fantasy. “I’ve been hired to be in your show to look after you,” Duffin tells him, following the show’s engaging aesthetic and remaining a compelling arm’s length from the character, while Tighe’s impassive face is projected, soft, tragic and knowing, above a cluttered set.
If the “elation” that Tighe’s medical records nervously watch for is present in the show, it comes via music, taken from the show’s accompanying record, Record, and performed with the exquisite drummer Conor Murray and Duffin’s vocal accompaniment. The songs themselves can be moving, devastating or raw with rage, providing the most eloquent expressions of Tighe’s resistance: “To gift the mind to chemistry, to numb it to the truth, hurts more than the bitter feeling that joy is but a fluke,” he sings on Lamotrigine.
Although his satirical treatment of both the psychiatrist and a counsellor suggest a deepening distrust of therapy, a brightly depicted fantasy of retreating to a summerhouse with Duffin is just as parodic. Then again Tighe is not offering prescriptions. Mental health, suggests Dr Pat Bracken, is a site of struggle, and in this affecting, invigorating piece, that struggle is inspiring.
Ends Saturday
