Performed by: Peiyi Zhong
Venue: theSpace @ Niddry Street
Time: 11.50am
Running time: 50 minutes
Rating: ★★★★ (4/5)
Reviewed by: Jo Sansom
A set of physical diary entries that chronicle the depth and breadth of living with bipolar disorder.
This show fuses monologues, physical theatre and lyrical movement to tell the story of Ella, a young artist who navigates grief, changing relationships and her own tenuous mental health in this affecting show from director Angelina Voznesenskaia.
The stage is littered with an emptied suitcase, clothes, socks, an abandoned easel and artworks. We see Ella, and the characters she interacts with (all denoted by an accessory such as a tie or sunglasses), as she moves through rapid changes in emotions.
She is at once full of fizzing energy and ready to create, then moments later immobilised by fear and unable to put on her shoes.
She tells us through anecdotes about the highs and lows of her recent life.
One story about scuba diving on holiday, where she describes the feeling of being completely free, is cleverly overlaid with enchanting movement to represent her elation within the water and how it creates safety and freedom.
The water then becomes a continued metaphor. When she returns home and receives the news that her grandmother has passed away, she suddenly feels a staggering weight and pressure, as if she is underwater and stuck in the deep, unable to move.
The references to water are used very effectively to demonstrate the conflicting feelings of lightness and weight, swimming and drowning. As the depression overtakes her, we see Ella being dragged down into the depths of the ocean that her mind has created.
We find out that after the death of her grandmother, Ella felt like she had lost her anchor and has been untethered in her mind ever since.
As her thoughts tumble in on her and weigh her whole body down, she feels useless, cracked and defeated. Ella laments that her bipolar disorder feels like ‘a bug in my system’.
The piece uses repeated dance motifs to mark the start of each ‘diary’ entry, which is very successful, and the movement sections throughout the piece really help the audience understand the intense shifts in feeling that characterise Ella’s bipolar experience.
The performer works incredibly hard in this piece of physical theatre. Not only does the movement require a great deal from her, but the amount of dialogue between characters and the range of emotions she has to work through in 50 minutes take a huge amount of energy, memory and presence.
This show provides an insightful perspective on mental health, told through engaging physical theatre and a considered script. Peiyi Zhong is brilliant as the solo performer and really engages the audience in Ella’s struggles and successes.
