I’m a
Phoenix, Bitch,
ideated by, written by and starring Bryony Kimmings, is a one-woman performance
about trauma and recovery.
It seems fitting that this piece of theatre for the
Sydney Festival occurs as the apocalypse seems nigh in the smoke-filled
backdrop of Sydney. Kimmings’ own tale of trauma is not without its climate
change–inflamed influence.
Known for her unashamedly autobiographical
performance theatre, Kimmings commences with her own ‘potted history’. Several
prior theatre works reveal her penchant for the critical and often controversial
self-expose, from the one-woman show – which this is – to the family affair. In
keeping with prior works, she leads the audience to expect a comic/tragic
cry-fest.
Kimmings begins with an important message. This
story is about her trauma, but it is not fresh, not served up unthinkingly for
a vulnerable audience. She has worked through her trauma and is safe; the
audience is safe. Telling personal experiences is a mode of therapy – not just
for the storyteller, but often for the audience too.
The story follows Kimmings’ meeting and falling in
love with her now-ex, Tim, falling pregnant, a traumatic birth, postnatal
delusory cleptoparasitosis alongside her son’s onset of epilepsy and her work
toward recovery.
Kimmings adopts the therapy technique of ‘rewinding’
into the traumatic experience into the on-stage performance using video
elements. A camera on moveable tripod, a hand-held camera and what the play
dubs a cyclorama, a circular backdrop at first curtained off, are used to great
effect. Crucially, the audience can see the true reality of what is on-stage at
the same time as seeing Kimmings through a distorted video lens projected onto
the background screen. An audio element of her rewinding process features
periodic recording of Dictaphone messages to her mute four-year-old son, Frank.
Rewinding into Kimmings’ story begins with the
background and context in which her trauma occurs. There are three Bryonys on
stage. Post-trauma Bryony is the main protagonist speaking to us from the
stage, dressed in comfortable black ‘celebrity sportswear’ complete with ‘camel
toe’. Pre-trauma Bryony is the performance artist at her peak, singing and dancing
in orange sequins and heels. The third Bryony is characterised by a comically
deep man’s voice that is her inner critic. Described as a ‘straight, white,
ci-gendered TV drama exec’, this voice questions Bryony’s reality as she
navigates both the peaks and troughs of her experience.
Aspects of Kimmings’ performance evoke Jennifer
Saunders. She makes comedic use of her malleable face for the fawning
‘breakfast nymph’ who entraps the ‘Greek god’ with her Venus flytrap vaginal
perfume and perfectly made-up façade. Her accent too is malleable, London-posh
to quirky London-youth – ‘peace’ – particularly when recording messages to her
son about surviving the apocalypse (notably, whether physical or mental). She
dons wigs and lipstick and colourful items of clothing at each of her video
stations on the stage, wiping the canvas clean to her black singlet and bike
shorts for each scene. Her singing and dancing is at times whimsical and
ethereal, working an edge into her ‘breakfast nymph’ who threatens her newfound
man ‘so you don’t leave me alone’; her pregnant hippie festival Insta-chick
morphing into the real trauma of birth; her horror-movie self haunted by vocals
that echo around the cyclorama scene: images of personal struggle as black and
white schlocky horror and later reality-style ‘true’ horror.
Kimmings’ narrative features physical
representations of ‘drowning’ into her state of psychosis and strengthening into
her personal recovery. Her talent and commitment to the storytelling and
physicality of this theatre piece is evident - with tears of pride and exertion
on her face, Kimmings had to interrupt the applause to inform the audience of
her merchandise and signing at the door. The comedy is evenly matched with the
building tragedy of the story and draws the audience in gradually and methodically.
As promised, I’m
a Phoenix, Bitch safely conveys the tragi-comedy of Kimmings’ experience of
motherhood. While there was no observable cry-fest from the audience, the
empathy to Kimmings’ experience was yet palpable. This mood, generated by
Kimmings’ consummate skill moving the audience from low-key confidential, almost
stand-up, start in the first scene, through the fantastically filmic
three-dimensional cyclorama and finally to the strong and decisive recovery
process that forms the satisfying, true climax.
That is not without the reminder that the river is
always lapping at the bank of the mind; the hellish state Bryony experienced is
as much a part of her life as pre-trauma Bryony’s faux facades. But now that
she has learnt to swim, she is as well prepared for the apocalypse as she can
be.
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