The Cat in the Box

‘The Cat in the Box’ is a darkly humorous, absurdist comedy, written by Vivienne Glance an Australian Writers’ Guild Award nominated playwright. This novel play launches the new season at the Blue Room Theatre, 53 James Street, Perth Cultural Centre, Northbridge. This 90-minute (with interval) play is a ‘Blue Room’ and ‘Follow That Cat Productions’ presentation, that is showing nightly at 7.00 pm until Saturday 18^th August.

Whilst lecturing in English, Vivienne is completing a PhD in Creative Writing at UWA, with a particular interest in ‘science in performance’. Vivienne’s botanical background is exhibited in such works as her poetry anthology, ‘The Softness of Water’, and another work ‘The Right of Passage’ that discusses the morality of bio-medical experiments. Vivienne’s works have already been presented at prestigious festivals all over the world.

We have all heard expressions and questions like ‘if a tree falls in the forest, and we didn’t see it or hear it, did it really happen?’ This was the kind of question first asked about 75 years ago when Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrodinger, postulated ‘imagine a cat in a box with an unstable cyanide capsule … until you check, it could be either alive or dead, depending upon what may have happened inside the box when you weren’t looking!’ i.e. observation is critical. This brilliant scientist employed this type of logic as part of the counter-intuitive basis for his quantum mechanics theories. As late as 1950, even Einstein was struggling to come to terms with Schrodinger’s theories and the Copenhagen interpretation.

You don’t understand a word of the last paragraph? Please do not let this heavy theory put you off this highly enjoyable, hilarious play, no understanding of physics is required.

         A hippy, on an eternal search for ‘The Prophet’, turns on his torch and looks around; he has found himself in small, dark room with a massive pile of unusual rubbish at one end and a locked door at the other. He hears a girl singing in a style made famous by Elva Miller. The beautiful voice of Courtney Pittman coupled with the ethereal music of composer, Jangoo Chapkhana, is made deliberately discordant.

        Whilst the hippy is examining the location, the door opens and a young girl in a balaclava enters. She is horrified that this smelly human – reminiscent of Neil in ‘The Young Ones’, who is unfortunately called Peadon (Kingsley Judd) -  is in her private art studio. The contemporary artist, who is named after a South American flower, Acalypha (Anna Brockway) tries to escape the mild mannered hippy, but finds the door will not open from the inside. She panics.

       Just as Acalypha is starting to give Peadon a rough time, the door opens and a white-coated scientist, Cincerea Blanca (Summer Williams) enters and switches on the room lights. Being an organised person, she starts to explain the rationality of the situation, but this infuriates Acalypha even more, who decides that to escape, more drastic steps are required! This results in a short blackout.

      A smartly dressed financial advisor, Reep (James Helm) suddenly appears. How did he get there? He is a smooth talker and soon has the others eating out of his hands, but as the tension in the room builds up, a catfight starts and allegiances sway.

        The caring aspects of religion are pitted against raw scientific facts, the greed of capitalism and the airy-fairy aesthetics of art are further added to the melting pot.

Director, Mark Barford, has gathered the cream of local actors. The script, dramaturged by John Aitken, calls for a clear explanation of the varying emotions and moods within the locked room. As well as being splendidly written, the atmosphere has been achieved by selecting players who are not only superb actors, but also have outstanding comedic talents. The script theme may have been about science, but special acting chemistry was essential to make this play work. Not surprisingly, the cast – all of whom have acting awards – were brilliant. The pace built up suspense as the battle of the arrogant and powerful, attacked the wise but vulnerable.

The mountain of strange objects – the ‘Pile’ – designed by the director and Emma Flavell was fascinating. With Chris Donnelly’s lighting, operated by Paula Coops, the Pile came alive.

This is a unique play with amazing dialogue, which has tackled very difficult topics, demanded total control of emotions and made the audience think about how others manipulate and affect their daily lives.

A hilarious dark comedy exquisitely presented. Congratulations.