The Big Bruise
Image: The Big Bruise. Photo by Hannah Cox.
This new play cuts to the core of society’s often-fetishized relationship with suicide. Unlike many plays before it, The Big Bruise goes beyond using suicide as a narrative point and actually invites the audience into the tangled mind state of someone coping with suicidal thoughts.
Cathartic and comedic in its own ways, The Big Bruise was written by Saro Lusty-Cavallari and co-devised with the sole performer, Sam Brewer.
“I do expect is that people who have had suicidal thoughts will be able to [sit in the audience] and identify with the character… people who’ve got to the point where everything’s completely overwhelming,” said Brewer, who admits that some of the monologues in this play have “hit quite close to home”.
“Suicide is something that is always going to be there, we can’t hide from it, mental health [problems are] always going to be there,” he added.
Brewer explained the development of this show as “quite a collaborative process”. “Saro has written the spine of it and the nervous system, and then I can just kind of chisel away at stuff…” he said.
Brewer’s own struggles with mental health issues have influenced how he has tackled the role, and living with a visual impairment has played no small part in this. As he explained, the issues he experiences in everyday life are more often drawn from people’s responses to him as a disabled person than from his disability itself.
“Disability and performance are very hard things to work around. The hardest part is working around the notion of this idea that the disabled are cute and inspiring…” Brewer noted. “Just because I’m disabled, it doesn’t mean I’m not an asshole. Any disabled person will want you to look at their art or their creation and give honest feedback…”
One of the things that excites and relives Brewer most about this role is that “it doesn’t really matter whether this character is blind or not”. He looks forward to a day when ‘disabled’ and ‘realist’ theatre won’t be considered mutually exclusive terms.
Incorporating highly technical multimedia elements, The Big Bruise is a greatly contemporary production that invites more depth and investigation into universal struggles of mental health and disability. (AM)
Apr 5–15, 8pm. 107 Projects, 107 Redfern Street, Redfern. $20-$25. Tickets & info: montaguebasement.com/tickets
