Review: LADYBONES, VAULT Festival

Nuala is a junior osteology archaeologist. She also suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Her life takes a turn when she discovers The Remains of a young woman in an unmarked grave.

Written and performed by Sorcha McCaffrey, Ladybones deals with the delicate matter sensitively: she infuses the play with slender humour and then pierces through it with the crude reality of living with OCD.

Nuala's internal conflict is pictured as shockingly real by McCaffrey. Her prose is fresh and funny while she lets the little details of her obsessions seep through it. Lucia Cox turns the monologue in an energetic piece but she's unafraid to let it simmer down to focus on Nuala's speech. Projections highlight the issues she struggles with in a long list that adds pace to the story.

"Sometimes I worry that I'm a weirdo" she says before explaining that everyone is a bit weird but her oddities go beyond that. Once the bones of the girl she's found are analysed, she suggests that she could have been a witch or, in other words, "just different" and starts to relate to her on a deeper level.

The concentration on the disorder itself comes with the display of how to care for those affected and the importance of asking for and accepting help. She destroys the stigma, reflecting on the role of personal relationships to break from the pattern of OCD and fight it.

The slight participation of the audience makes her experience universal: involving them first-hand to take on the part of her therapist or requesting their help to go through a breakdown adds a layer of responsibility to her tale.

Much appreciated was the fact that upon their entering the auditorium, McCaffrey herself asked the single members of the crowd if they wanted to participate in the show. Granted that this could have been in place solely for the relaxed and BSL-signed performance we reviewed, it's a gimmick that came with a huge sigh of relief by many and should be introduced in more shows of this kind.

Ladybones runs at Network Theatre as part of VAULT Festival until 24 February.

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