The Damage is Done - A Perspective Shift

The Damage is Done is a multimedia conversation about trauma, blame and liberation. The run of the production, directed by Ken Cameron and featuring Rita Bozo and Gabor Maté, was sold out before curtain on opening night so I hope you already have your tickets!

 

More of a conceptual and emotional exploration than traditional theatre, The Damage is Done is highly personal and occasionally "meta". The courage it takes to not only create, but to market and perform such a personally insightful piece is immense. Bozi portrays her family and friends with a fresh, enthusiastic compassion while Maté provides his own quiet and compassionate perspective. 

 

In the talkback Bozi spoke of how inhabiting the body and character of the people she came up against in her life deepened her empathy and love for them, this process is obvious in her performance. It's a fascinating exercise I think we could all benefit from. Her charming energy and physical joy imbues a potentially dry or overly bleak production with a life that allows the audience to fully immerse themselves in the highs and lows of her story. 

 

Multimedia is tough, it splits focus. The challenge of creating a consistency that enhances the action without distracting from it is a balancing act. There were some great moments like the film clips of Gloomy Monday, the Bozi family dinner and a fist slamming on the desk during an argument, but there were large stretches where the images on the screen were just distracting.  My friend thought perhaps it was a Brechtian device to keep the audience on a distanced, intellectual level. Given the content of the show, I doubt that was the case. If the media that was intended to be in the background, like the photos or the books, had been more static, I don’t think I would have been so tempted to keep checking what was going on up on the screen and dividing my attention between a real life actor and some photos being moved around on a table. I did like the layer of history and context that the visuals added, I wouldn't do away with them, but I would not always have them competing with the action. 

 

It took me a while to warm up to Maté, I imagine that, as a public figure, theatre must be a disorienting new experience and I loved the gusto with which he embraced the medium, I just expected more stage presence from a renowned speaker. That said, during the therapy session scene with Bozi, Maté opened right up in a magnetic way. That scene added so much to the piece, but it did feel out of place thematically. I wish the letters could have had a similar feel to weave throughout the production. 

 

That is my only real criticism for this piece, there were a lot of small niggly things that prevented me from diving deep into the world that Bozi, Cameron and Maté (with dramaturgy by Peter Hinton) have laboured so lovingly to create. Sputtering mics, performers missing their light and translating words that we already had subtitles for, an inconsistency in the theatrical devices and a host of other small annoynces, unimportant for themselves, kept grating at my nerves.  But The Damage is Done is freshly workshopped, still in its first incarnation. Perhaps these are all indicators of the process of a larger work being discovered and refined. 

 

The Damage is Done is, performed with courage, grace,compassion, humour, joy and energy. It felt a little wobbly, like it has not yet hit its stride. It could do with some polish, a little structural tightening and an even deeper level of trust on the part of the already committed performers, but it is a compelling and important piece and I hope it will come back again and again with each carnation evolving in this ongoing journey towards love and liberation.