Gothic, romantic, disturbing. Or, as the Germans, Freudian enthusiasts, and literature students would put it, unheimlich.
Bog Body is for all the people who read Carol Anne Duffy’s ‘Valentine’ as a young teenager and decided they wouldn’t settle for a love shown through shallow acts of plastic-wrapped roses and heart-shaped chocolates. Love should be much more. This one-woman play can be well summarised from the closing lines of Duffy’s poem: love’s “scent will cling to your fingers, cling to your knife.”
The love in question is between Petra, a grieving young woman, and Lindow Man, a human cadaver from the early 60s AD. After a violent death, Lindow Man was left face down in a peat bog, where his remains were preserved through natural mummification. Petra grows obsessed with him, learning everything she can about his life and death, even theorising in dialogue with historians. Was Lindow Man a victim or a willing sacrifice? How willing can a sacrifice be? Has he since become a wiedergänger?
Nevertheless, Petra is enamoured. To her, Lindow Man is a more suitable subject of her affections than any of the 34 first dates she went on last year. With no normal guys left anyway, it is time to accept that “love [can] reach its hands through time and death.” That having a body is less important than having a connection. And there is something Lindow Man can give her that none of those dates could: he’s a really great listener! Despite its absurdity, the play is hauntingly understandable.
Running parallel to Petra’s obsession with the millennia-old corpse is the aftermath of her sister’s death. Though presented as a suicide, Petra believes her twin sister, Rebecca, was murdered by her husband. Yet another reason why Lindow Man is preferable to a living man. Interspersed between Petra’s monologues are voiceovers from her therapist, providing insight into her severely imbalanced mental state. The double-sided mystery cuts deep: Petra will never uncover the truth of either Lindow Man or Rebecca’s death.
The commanding timbre of Petra’s voice guides the audience to the final scene, which could be described as both a wedding and a funeral. Her bridal attire, by this point soiled by the marshland, paints her as an Ophelia-esque tragic heroine. She has been funny, and charming, and beautiful, and tortured; now it is time for her to find peace.
Image courtesy of Itchy Feet Theatre, provided to The Student as press material.
