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Lucy Ellinson as Pushpin. Credit: Steve Tanner |
20th March – 5th April 2014
In the aftermath of what seems to have been an orgiastic office
party, its semi-naked participants stumble through their discarded clothing – pausing
only to indulge in a few fevered morning-after gropes – as they race against
the clock to prepare the scene for the start of the working day. Cramming
fluorescent skirts and feather boas into boxes and cupboards, they step into the
formal attire of the 1920s civil service, while up in his grimy bedsit, after a
night alone, their secluded, excluded colleague Pushpin pulls on his ill-fitting
suit – and all to the pounding throb of Mark E. Smith and The Fall. It’s a
period-punk mash-up to make Michael Clark proud.
And that’s just the beginning, because in this balls-out
brilliant adaptation of Gogol’s 1835 short story Diary of a Madman, Chris Goode constantly plays with theatrical form
and context, fusing contemporary cultural imagery and meta-theatrical
flourishes with the experimental flair of the Modernists to make the tale of
lowly civil servant Pushpin’s psychological collapse a full-volume howl against
current injustices and intolerance. Trapped in the repetitive cycle of bureaucratic
banality, bullied by the idiotic representatives of the institutions he is
expected to respect, and ground down by social and economic inequality, Pushpin
is the tormented outsider whose descent into insanity seems the only rational
response.
Dashing about on Janet Bird’s excellent multi-level set,
constantly out of step with the codes and practices of the world around him,
Pushpin moves from wistful adoration of the boss’s daughter Sophie (a
splendidly haughty Gemma Brockis) to dedicated night-time stalker to
dog-converser and ends with total derangement via a stint as self-professed
king of Spain. As Pushpin, Lucy Ellinson gives an astonishing performance, delivering
a supercharged caricature of eccentricity with a physically elastic virtuosity
that is extraordinary (prompting an audience member in the post-show Q&A to
ask, ‘when did you realise that your face was so stretchy?’). Elaborately
gestural and hugely expressive under a hay-coloured fright wig, Ellinson wrings
hilarity from Pushpin’s growing sense of dislocation from reality, as his external
behaviour becomes ever more closely aligned with the madness of the inner
voice.
The comedy continues until Pushpin, in full psychotic flight
as the Spanish sovereign, finally dismantles the theatrical construct entirely
and in doing so seems to find a kind of peace, or at least a sense of personal
vindication – until the mechanisms of control reassert themselves once more and
we witness the shocking brutality of ‘reality’ forcibly imposed on the
free-thinking outsider.
With talking dogs, a dance freakout complete with gold
mirror ball and an interplanetary alignment of questionable taste, Mad Man is fast, fun and thrillingly
original. And Lucy Ellinson will convince you in everything she does to the
very last second.
Written & directed by Chris Goode
Produced by Theatre Royal Plymouth
Sound design by Chris Goode
Set & costume design by Janet Bird
Cast includes: Nigel Barrett, Gemma Brockis, Lucy Ellinson, Gareth Kieran
Jones
Running time: 1 hour 40 mins (no interval)
Reviewed for Exeunt