Every Brilliant Thing is a heart-wrenching story about mental illness performed with a pantomime twist. Jonny Donohue, the piece’s sole actor, narrates his experience of his mother’s depression and later his own. The piece skirts the cliche of confessional storytelling through audience involvement, a performance feature that is first hinted at by the unusual structure of the theatre space. When the audience first enter the theatre, they find sixty seats placed upon the stage itself, forming an amphitheatre with the remaining stall seats. It then becomes clear that Donohue intends to get up close and personal during the performance. Donohue invites or coerces audience members onto the stage to take on roles such as his local vet, father and wife. The scenes that come about because of this are reminiscent of role playing devices in drama therapy, yet they retain their entertainment value by virtue of Donohue’s self deprecating humour.
The humour centres the performances, linking what could otherwise be experienced as a series of episodic anecdotes, and provides a comfortable ground to explore emotive topics. Donohue relates that when at seven, after his mother first attempted suicide, he made her a list of reasons to live. At seventeen, after her second attempt, he was so angry that he told her to try again. This list of reasons was divided up among the audience and read out at intervals throughout the performance.
The brutal honesty of the performance, combined with the at times saccharin innocence of the child’s perspective, balance one another and provide a cohesive, comprehensive look at mental health. Donohue plays the role of actor-as-magician summoning forth scenarios without a set, relying only on the strength of his own performance. In one such scene, at the hands of Donohue, an audience member’s coat becomes a dog. Then, after Donohue persuades the audience-member-turned-vet to put the dog down, it reverts to a mere object, a coat, again. Such a feat requires the audience to entirely suspend their disbelief, a testament to the strength of Donohue’s thrall over the viewers. This power provides a statement about his ability to create theatre from nothing, save the audiences’ willingness to engage with the performance.
In a show that deals lightly, even irreverently, with topics such as suicide, any attempt to engage the audience could easily become confrontational in nature. Yet from the beginning of the piece, Donohue creates an an intimate atmosphere for the performance, shirking the formality and clear boundaries typically present in the traditional, fourth wall, theatre structure. Everything Brilliant Thing is a conglomeration of improvisation, storytelling and lighthearted entertainment. It can be recommended as an enjoyable piece of theatre that provides a forum to discuss somber themes as more than mere potential for tragedy.
