Review: The Uninvited, Cube Theatre Co, The Arc, Trowbridge (From This Is Wiltshire)

Review: The Uninvited, Cube Theatre Co, The Arc, Trowbridge

1:43pm Friday 19th March 2010 in

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Though the set design of bedstead and radiator put me in mind of my early boarding school days, the subject matter of The Uninvited byCube Theatre Company took the audiences to a far darker place.

This three-hander was staged and scripted in such a way as to require the audience’s rapt attention, as it was not immediately clear as to how many characters were being portrayed.

Were we confronting a ghostly past? Or glimpsing an imagination? Is it possible for imaginary friends from childhood to survive into adulthood? Or were we witnessing the traits of something more sinister? All these possible, plausible binaries paraded in my head as the action played out on the stage.

The Doctor arguably starts as a lesser character, but as the action unfolds her own back story reveals a past of regretted, troubled loneliness. A reminder that whatever our standing in life, there are times when we all need help.

The switch between Patient and Officials was achieved with adept, smooth swiftness, and I felt having two actors inhabiting the same role during one performance was an inspired approach, allowing the audience a true insight into mental illness, with the expounding and depiction of the mind portrayed with graphically shuddering brilliance. Such characterisation was brilliant and highly informative, enabling us to glimpse inside a highly troubled yet complex mind, due to detailed writing and research, more than possibly drawn from inner knowledge. In the final scene we were served a poignant reminder that those afflicted can only lose their demons when it’s too late.

The evening left me confident of three things: that Cubed Theatre are at home beyond the authoritative realms of Shakespeare; that minds can be cruelly invaded by unwanted things and that the criminally insane should be understood, treated, not punished.