Fear and self-loathing lie in wait as one woman fails to suppress her filthy urges beneath a shiny exterior.
Bursting onto a set that is the cleanest, whitest, bathroom you’re ever likely to encounter outside of a glossy ad, emitting the sounds and juddering, jerky movements of repulsion and disgust, our woman stops short when she notices the audience is watching her. This breaking of the fourth wall, parading the hidden and forbidden before shutting it down tightly once more, defines the inner and outer worlds this woman inhabits. It is also one that resonates deep within us all.
This everywoman, shimmering at the edges of insanity, struggles to reconcile her desires for the pure and the putrid. Repetitively cleaning her already-gleaming porcelain with an obsessive lasciviousness, she rubs at their surfaces, faster and harder, until she achieves a satiated bliss – accompanied by the sound of bird-song and projections of lightly-golden flowers and butterflies, floating across her loo and cascading over her shower curtain.
The flipside of this is revealed when we watch an animated summary of her failed relationship with work colleague John, and she uncovers half a mouldy sandwich, tucked discreetly behind the sink pedestal, kept in a brown paper bag with his name on. Further illicit longings are exposed as she takes delivery of a red basque, stripper heels and a whip. But even dressing in such overt lewdness cannot save her from surrendering to the luminous-green mould that lurks beneath the bath. Attracted and repelled in equal measure, she covers herself and the bathroom in the loathsome slime, momentarily luxuriating in the feel of filth.
Light humour and a playful touch is tinged with something darker and more sinister, but held beautifully in balance by a precise performance and a clever creative team. Melanie Jordan as part mime-artist, part dancer, part clown is a complete and consummate physical performer. Under the direction of Caitlin Skinner, the combination of set, sound, lighting and animated projections, together with Jordan’s performance, created an absorbing and engrossing production.
There are, of course, no answers to the mass of contradictions that make up each and every one of us. And as yet, our desire for a bit of filth is managed and packaged into neat little boxes, so we can lift their lids at appropriate times and in appropriate places – either in secret hiding places or in a publicly palatable presentation. But getting such messy business out in the open is at least a baby step along the road of reconciliation. And this may leave a little mark on our sanitised society that helps us deal with a little dirt - without the fear and self-loathing.
Runs 20-21 February