‘Lights Out’ took to Bedlam’s stage last Friday night to portray a witty, yet painfully
authentic conversation between sisters, shadowed by the foggy presence of untreated
childhood wounds.
The cast of two brought life to a clever script, filled with the all-too-familiar petty discourse
and tense silences of a distanced sibling relationship that isn’t as it once was. Audiences
were greeted with a stage littered with moving boxes amidst a standalone armchair, the
sisters alternately sitting on either to mirror their ever-switching levels of openness and
maturity throughout the exchange. A few missed beats and line delays did not stop the
production from thoroughly entertaining its audience. From comedic clashes over fruit salad
and mission impossible vs mean girls, to confronting vs ignoring darker elements of their
shared past, bedlam was filled with laughter and silence as the narrative unfolded.
As the play progressed the two sisters sat on the floor together, levelling with theatregoers
and enveloping the audience in their awkward discussions of each other’s increasingly alien
personal lives. The people behind ‘Lights Out’ transformed Bedlam into a half-unpacked flat,
filled with intimate conversation that the audience themselves seemed part of. Writer and
director Rae Webb created a script that skilfully expanded a light-hearted and funny
everyday conversation to an emotion-packed confrontation of shared and repressed past
trauma and how reactions shape the moral perception of an event. Both actors talentedly
portrayed a strained and polarised sisterly bond, a highlight being the deeply emotionally
illustrative voice work whilst the charged ‘lights out’ moment took hold of the stage.
Each creative decision behind Bedfest’s ‘Lights Out’ felt meaningful, urging
onlookers to re-examine their own familial relationships and head into the future with
enough hope and strength to confront the past (or let it rest).
Image provided via Bedlam Theatre Press Release