The Wonderful World of Dissocia

Short abstract

By Anthony Neilson First shown at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 1 to 4 September, and now running at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, until 25 September

Rating: ★★★

Anthony Neilson is one of the most talented playwrights of the vibrant British drama scene. Over the last 10 years he has delivered searingly honest, challenging works such as Penetrator, The Censor, and Stitching, which have focused firmly on the dramatists' touchstone—the primary need to engage with and, in the broadest sense of the word, entertain the audience.

Figure 1.

Staging madness: The Wonderful World of Dissocia

Expectations were therefore high this year when it was announced that Neilson would be writing the dramatic showpiece of the Edinburgh International Festival. In recent years, this prime festival slot had failed to deliver critically successful work from the well regarded roster of Scotland's new writers. Tension was further tweaked when the Scottish Executive (Scotland's devolved parliament) announced that it was co-sponsoring The Wonderful World of Dissocia, as part of its national programme for improving mental health and wellbeing. Was this collaboration going to be successful, or had the beleaguered executive scored yet another own goal by, arguably, wasting taxpayers' money, this time via the hard-pressed health budget?

Neilson's subject matter has always hinted at aspects of mental illness, but in this new play he has tackled madness head-on. So, in the first act, the heroine, Lisa (acted with engaging restraint and compassion by Christine Entwisle), is led by events into a wonderland journey of increasing menace—within her own mind.

Wisely, Neilson has not fallen into the potential trap of staging madness from the medical perspective (that way embarrassing misunderstanding of psychiatric classification lies). Instead, he shows us our world through the eyes of a bewildered (manically psychotic) patient. This reaps intriguing, dramatic rewards, via a succession of surreal characters—including crooning polar bears—that Lisa meets on her journey. It also allows Neilson the freedom to explore his originality, and I experienced significant moments of moving lyricism and compassion for the human predicament.

The second half of the play explains the unhinged liberation of the first. Lisa sits in bed, in a white, sealed side room of an in-patient unit. She hasn't, we discover, been taking her medication, and the addictive cycle of relapse into mania, followed by remorseful recovery (regularly experienced by patients), is sensitively explored.

This production was an exciting addition to Neilson's canon, directed by him with flair and precision. The production and design were impressive, as was some of the acting (the remainder being adequately workmanlike). So, the Scottish Executive has not, by any means, collaborated in serving us a turkey, but has it spent taxpayers' money wisely? Dissocia has been an undoubted critical success, but the play's Edinburgh run did not sell out.

Such a bold initiative fully exposes the political risk inherent in public funding of the arts. An Edinburgh Festival production, with its frenetic time and cost pressures, inevitably carries scary potential for critical and popular failure. It could all have gone horribly wrong. In view of the Scottish Executive's interminable series of public image blunders, is such risk taking a sign of departmental desperation? One wonders, respectfully, if our political masters might benefit from a visit to the shrink.