Let Bleeding Girls Lie

As the third episode of the Grief Trilogy, this play continues to explore the impact of grief and how it intrudes into life, in this case, the most ephemeral of contacts. Three women are at the Blood Bank donating plasma and are physically constrained in their chairs watching television. The intrusion of the televised coverage of a bombing at a public music event opens their wounds and they gradually reveal their personal losses.

The avidity of watching the aftermath of the bombing contrasts strongly with the reticence of personal disclosure. The actors (Emily Tomlins, Chanella Macri and Belinda McClory) are able to lead the audience on their dance of daring to share some of their personal pain and retreating to the safety of irony and distance. Each actor is able to elegantly portray how they cover up their pain and how the carriage of their grief affects them. They are funny and moving and, above all, sublimely competent especially in their use of timing, silence and beautifully nuanced physicality and expression.

The lighting designer (John Collopy) and sound designer/composers (Tom Backhaus and Hannah McKittrick) provide a subtle and supportive background to the actors’ work. The simplicity of the stage setting focusses the audience on the emotional action.

This meditation on the difficulties of life and relationships and how we carry our grief ends with the beauty and solace of a lullaby which is reminder, as are the trio of plays, that once born we are wrapped in relationships which lead to harrowing pain and to unexpected comfort.

Ruth Richter

Photographer: Darren Gill