Reviewed by Frank McKone
November 13
Creatives
Writer Ryan Enniss
Director Daniel Evans
Set and Costume Designer Christina Smith
Lighting Designer Matt Scott
Composer/ Sound Designer Guy Webster
Video Designer Nevin Howell
Stage Manager Kat O'Halloran
Assistant Stage Manager Nicole Neil
Cast
Drizzle Boy - Daniel R Nixon
Mother/ Juliet/ Valentina Tereshkova/ Dustin Hoffman/ Google/ Doctor - Naomi Price
Father/ Hans Asperger/ Baphomet/ Google/ Doctor - Kevin Spink
There are two ways to appreciate this modern-style theatre work.
First
it is a highly original way of using theatre as a kind of adult
theatre-in-education about how being autistic is a natural condition in
some people, which the person concerned cannot change.
Second, it
is a play about other people unfairly judging autistic people as
abnormal or even subnormal, at best trying to treat them psychologically
or at least trying to help them; at worst disrespecting them as figures
of fun, as social failures, or even with aggression because they don’t
change to suit ‘normal’ expectations.
Being “on the spectrum” is
now a commonly used term, which at least recognises that every autistic
person is different in their own way. The line in the play is “If you
have met one autistic person, you have met one; if you have met another
autistic person, you have met another one.”
Because people with
autism don’t respond in the expected ways to emotional subtext cues,
they may – as David does – create fictional characters drawn from
stories, and perhaps especially from movies, which they imagine to be
real and may be called on for help; or may seem to impose judgements
about what they are doing.
The key moment in the play, as a
relationship is developing between David and Juliet in their late teens,
is when she has expressed love for him. David stops, looks at her in
an objective kind of way, and asks “Are you real?” Juliet says simply
“Yes.”
He means the question literally: is she real or a figment
of his imagination? She means literally that she is real. While in the
‘normal’ audience, we know that she really means she really does love
him for what he is, as he is.
The presentation of the story in
theatrical terms is quite remarkable. The choreographed movement work
is amazingly complex and so precisely done. The use of voice over and
other sound effects are quite stunning, as is the lighting. And I found
it hard to imagine how the two actors working with David – the Drizzle
Boy – could possibly have managed all those costume changes – in
addition to their character, voice and accent changes.
So, first the show is entertaining just for the performances, staging and technical impacts.
While,
second, it commands respect for the actors as actors, and for the
frustrations and difficulties that people with autism face on a daily
basis – and must always face, even when intellectually they can learn to
understand yet can never be sure of succeeding in emotional
situations. The play remains realistic about autism as a condition, but
gives us hope that more people will find ways to treat each other with
the respect we all deserve.
This hope comes from the experience,
which I certainly had, of realising that we all surely have to learn to
better appreciate and respect others for being who they are, because
most of us – perhaps men, especially – are at least a little bit like
David, the Drizzle Boy.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
