Not So Nice‘s latest production, Living With The Dead is an intriguing, if uneven,
piece of work with some accomplished character acting and moments of feeling.
It is a play about a young mortician, Kris (played well by Grace Ava Baker), preparing bodies for cremation. The corpses, animated, get “a chance to relive, reminisce and remember” moments of their lives before this ceremony.
Matthew Attwood directs skillfully within his form. There are some lovely
performances, like Chris Veteri’s Evans, who reappears regularly as a co-worker
and cynical foil to Kris. The ensemble switches very quickly across different
characters, ages and genders. On the whole their interpretations display nuanced
and intelligent character acting. Isabella Velarde is a standout performer, who
intelligently interprets their distinct characters, from a sadistic boss to a sickly child.
Cossette Bolt’s text has an air of catastrophe to it. A refrain in the work is reports of
bad news, which culminates with the cast repeating statistics as if reporting, in
multiple languages. Climate catastrophe, globalism, and the oppression of particular
identities, all form part of its politics. There’s a particularly resonant line, which
summarises the play’s thematic and political statement most: “Never forget that all
the tables are the same height, for some this is the only place they will ever
experience equality”.
There are plenty of great ideas in this play. But there is also perhaps not enough
interrogation of its concepts, and the theatrical form. If the play wants to continue to exist as heightened naturalism, its episodic nature should be more clearly defined,
and Kris’s internal conflicts further explored.
Perhaps an exploration of death with a group of clearly skilled young actors
should transcend heightened naturalism. A more radical aesthetic, something more
akin to Kantor’s “Theatre of Death”, which more compellingly explores performers
not yet close to the end of life with their “corpses” would quieten an audience’s
gripes with the underdeveloped dramatic elements of the piece. For example, Kris
having to cremate her co-worker functions as a theatrical image, but if the audience
has been asked to treat the space like an evocation of the real world, with surreal
elements integrated without much discomfort, one wonders why a co-worker
morbidly has to cremate an old friend.
Thus, whilst the play had a brilliant concept and great ideas, a complete surrender to
the symbolic might resolve its textual incredulity, and elevate it to a more provocative theatre.
Image by Matthew Attwood