In a Heartbeat

Seeing In a Heartbeat means going to a time warp tea party, with real tea, biscuits and cake, china and tablecloths.  There are six tables ringing the La Mama Courthouse stage and six young hostesses, if that’s the word, in 1940s or ‘50s skirts and blouses.  They’re like your Mum or your auntie sixty or seventy years ago.  They show us to the tables and welcome us with warm smiles, make small talk, and serve tea.  There’s also a wandering chappie, but his job is to help out and occasionally take part in some dancing.  (He looks a bit lost and redundant, actually.)  The music is Glen Miller and later audience members are invited to join in.

In a Heartbeat is, as we might expect from Barking Spider Visual Theatre, a devised and collaborative work in which the look, the concept and the emotions are more important than the mere text – and that’s reinforced by audience presence and participation.  Here, however, the text is ‘verbatim theatre’ – that is, the words spoken by the six young performers are quotations, the result of conversations and relationships which developed between these performers and residents of the dementia unit of the Corpus Christi Residential Aged Care in Clayton. 

If that sounds daunting, or a bit ‘worthy’, be assured that In a Heartbeat is a joyous and wisely brief experience which leaves its audience smiling, either in happy nostalgia and reverie, or as a glimpse into a past world. 

The words themselves are the memories and reflections on life of the old folks to whom the cast spoke.  Words of the eighty (or more) year-olds spoken with perfect seriousness by fresh-faced young twenty-somethings in unison.  Were the tone not so light and bright – almost celebratory - the eerie feeling of time passing would dominate.  There’s the implicit sense that one day these young people will be eighty too – and all too swiftly (in a heartbeat, so to speak). 

These performers, who have collaborated with director Penelope Bartlau, are Ashleigh Gray, Emma Telford, Laura Aldous, Rachel Duffy and Chloe Smith.  The chappie is Jaimie Chapman.  Subtle lighting changes that effect changes of mood are by Jason Lehane and the sound design is by Darius Kodros. 

For me, the six young women speaking in unison – clearly a deliberate decision – doesn’t quite come off.  Six people talking at once, even if speaking the same words, in different registers and from different parts of the stage too easily turns into a sort of white noise – which is a pity because the words here are the hard-earned wisdom of survivors.

Michael Brindley

Image by Theresa Harrison