Review: DISSOCIATED, Etcetera Theatre

Alex is struggling. She's 27 years old, everything is going well, she's planning her wedding and going to med school, and yet she can't cope with reality. She hides in a dreamlike universe to keep her past and present at bay, but by doing so, the boundaries between truth and imagination start to break and she finds herself wondering where she stands.

Dave Bain writes and directs a play with songs that handles mental health and abuse with jarring precision and even an unexpected dose of humour. He holds back as he introduces his main character, unearthing the trauma she's buried in her mind layer by layer in a journey that parallels the real-life hardships faced by those who share her pain. Dissociated works well even at this embryonic state and in such a small space. The ten musical numbers scattered throughout the pice don't grant it the status of musical, but rather, they hint at music as healing

Alex and Annie (the protagonist's "other self" of sorts) are trapped in a failing security system that doesn't protect them anymore. As her memories begin to be muddled and her grip on the legitimate world slips, Eloise Jones offers a passionate performance to back the decline of Alex's mental health. As choreographer for the show, she also introduces a skilled movement scheme to accompany the songs that, however, sometimes fails to have a clear connection with the thematic line. Georgia Imrie juggles a handful of character is what is an outstanding stage debut.

Bain willingly keeps the storyline convoluted; placing the personal excavation of psychological trauma in the realm of dreams allows him to toy with timeline and triggers, and to create distressing images with video feeds and sound design. The quality of these latter elements isn't the best, but works for a theatre like the Etcetera's. He sprinkles the show with details, from Alex's physical ticks to the minor outcomes of her breakdown, but his writing can at times be sluggish and bulky, especially when it comes to lyrics.

The piece's strong point is certainly the way it presents its content, with Bain's refusing to pat the shoulder of his own characters and pushing Alex to identify the issue by herself. The outer dimension is suggested yet relative, both due to the nature of her spiral and the introspective focus on the internalisation of her past. This run is a remarkable stepping stone for the material, which has all the potential to become the flagship of its kind.

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