★★★
Bright Those Claws That Mar The Flesh begins in complete darkness.
Lightning flashes and the audience is unsettled by a young woman, Leda Swann – wearing a black wig, maroon velvet blazer and dodgy slip-on shoes – standing motionless and way too close. Swann is an unsettling character, as is the ancient Greek tale from which her name is derived – y’know, the one where Helen of Troy’s mum is raped by a freaking swan (Zeus turned himself into a swan specially for the occasion). The rest of the play continues on a disturbing, though often comical trajectory.
Euripides’ famous tragedy The Bacchae pits the word of a god against the word of mortals. Similarly, in Bright Those Claws That Mar The Flesh, the word of a newly accredited facilitator for a sobriety support group is pitted against the cocaine-enabled rantings of a knight errant, two thespians, and a judge – who, after having ingested a lot of gear, are convinced of their own divinity.
The addicts shout over the top of each other, spray each other with spittle and talk in circles. The knight errant, Edmundia Dante (a watered-down Don Quixote) claims that she’s just had “the greatest idea of all time”: they should stage a play while coked out of their minds.
The characters tuck into booze, coke, weed and apples as they rehearse their rendition of The Bacchae. Thespian Sir Rexion Mustyorvsky is cast as the King of Thebes, Pentheus, but he desires the role of the Queen Mother, Agave. Alarmingly, he castrates himself and presents the offcuts splattered in blood to the audience; unfortunately for him, his botched sex change doesn’t win him the part.
This play is a farce; a fast-paced 55 minutes of watching people slip, slide, yell, guffaw, eat apples, drag a pretend baby around inside a box, and reference Sylvia Plath. It’s a highly amusing show brimming with literary and cultural references and silly physical comedy.
Bright Those Claws That Mar The Fleshis playing at the Old Fitz Theatre until Saturday June 11.
