The
statistics are
staggering – on
average, one woman is killed every week as a result of intimate partner violence; one in three
women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence perpetrated by someone
known to them; one in four children are exposed to domestic violence, which is a
recognised form of child abuse; while two-thirds of domestic homicides are committed
by an intimate partner. These are not figures but people, lives which are
affected and often cut short by violence and/or abuse.Angus Cerini’s new
play The
Bleeding Tree – winner of the 2014
Griffin Award – takes to this world with gusto and gives us a harrowing and
darkly-funny play in which women don’t die, but rather get their own back at
the man who has been such a violent presence in their lives.
Produced
by Griffin Theatre Company,
Cerini’s play unfolds upon Renée
Mulder’s steeply raked and pleated stage, and his words cascade and hurtle
around the little theatre, a potent and heady rush of adrenaline and relief in
chiaroscuro (courtesy of lighting designer Verity Hampson). But before a word
of Cerini’s script is spoken, we are thrust headfirst into the world of the
play – of a mother and her two daughters – by a swirling cresecendoing
soundstorm (Steve Toulmin) that shakes the theatre and our seats with unease
and trepidation. It’s a powerful mix, and in the hands of director Lee Lewis,
the three women – Paula Arundell as the mother, and Shari Sebbens and Airlie
Dodds as the daughters – never put a foot wrong on Mulder’s steep set.
