Originally written as a play for Radio 4, Rose Heiney has adapted her often disturbing monologue for the stage and the intimacy of the tiny Jermyn Street Theatre is the perfect space to experience it.We're in a small, very messy studio flat. Tracey Emin's 'Bed', maybe re-titled 'Floor', springs to mind. The Richard Curtis film posters and a small shelf of books seem to be the only objects that have been cared for. Certainly not our protagonist, nameless except for an abusive, self-loathing term. (Let's just call her UC). She is dressed in a filthy rabbit suit onesie. With ears. And a bottle of vodka. And a computer.
Described as a painfully funny play, Original Death Rabbit seems to be mostly about mental illness which is a "really difficult issue", "a complex issue" as UC keeps reminding us. Her own problems are hinted at early on when she talks about her OCD behaviour. She berates the audience with her assumption that we will hate her because she went to Oxford to study English Literature due to her love of poetry. "Elite! Bullingdon! Incest! Overprivileged!". We don't hate her as much as she hates herself, obviously, and the stories of her life she tells us confirm that.
Her father is institutionalised after a schizophrenic incident, she befriends a depressive on Twitter and then 'trolls' him, she inadvertently becomes a meme and then can't deal with the fallout. She, herself, has schizophrenic episodes and turns to alcohol. All this is told in a lighthearted way which is painful but not necessarily funny. Apart from one member of the audience when I was there who seemed to find everything embarrassingly hilarious, most of us smiled knowingly and managed an occasional, sympathetic titter.
The other big theme is the destructive properties of the internet. We social media refuseniks (you can only follow me on the tube or when I'm walking home) can feel a bit smug as UC's life becomes a technological hell of her own making. She ends up with a book of T.S.Eliot's poetry on her lap as she celebrates her 32nd birthday and the lights go out.
Don't quite know what to make of this. Kimberley Nixon (Fresh Meat, Ordinary Lives, Cranford) as UC gives a sterling, heartfelt performance and engages you for the full 90 minutes. It's well directed by Hannah Joss, and the staging (Louie Whitemore) looks authentic, I've been in many flats like that. I'm just a bit worried for the writer.
Rose Heiney is the same age as UC and also went to Oxford. She's best known as a scriptwriter for Fresh Meat, Big Bad World and Miranda so she knows her comedy. Why the lazy jibes at Guardian readers, posh socialists, internet geeks?
