Anthony Neilson’s 2004 drama about dissociative identity disorder is a reminder to never judge a play at the interval. It is certainly tempting to write the whole thing off as we are dragged through the irrational and kooky first half. Everything changes in the short, stark, second act and radically transforms our experience.
Leah Harvey plays Lisa, a woman who falls down the rabbit hole of her mental illness into a fantasy world of surreal creatures, from a sexually violent goat to a bear singing about brain death. The borrowed motifs from other lands are easy to spot, from Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland to CS Lewis’s Narnia and Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist universe, all set against flat picture-book backdrops (designed by Grace Smart).
