- The Performance, by Claire Thomas. Hachette, $32.99.
There's something magical about live theatre, something special about being cocooned in darkness and surrounded by strangers while, on the lit stage, actors transport us to another realm. As an audience we might be entertained, amused or shocked. We might escape for a couple of hours. We might even be provoked to think and reflect on our own lives.
The Performance, by Claire Thomas invites us to do all of these things. The entire novel takes place on a single hot summer night during a performance of a Samuel Beckett play while catastrophic bushfires rage in the mountains not far from the city.
Thomas has chosen a rich setting around which to frame her literary novel. The key protagonists are three women of different ages, social classes and backgrounds. Through their eyes, we view Beckett's "Happy Days", a play laden with symbolism, motifs and metaphors. Margot is an ageing literary academic approaching retirement and dealing with a husband in the early stages of dementia. Summer is a gay drama student who works as an usher at the theatre and whose girlfriend's family home is under threat from the fires. Ivy is a wealthy middle-aged philanthropist and mother of a young child, struggling with grief and the challenges of trying to define herself in her parenting role.
The play's main character, Winnie, is buried up to her waist in the ground in a dry damaged landscape. Her husband, Willie, appears from time to time. But the play is really an exploration of Winnie's attempts to rationalise her situation and remain positive while confronting (or not confronting) the restrictions of being buried and unable to move.
What's so clever about this novel is the seamless way the author interlaces the performance of the play and its themes with her protagonists' thoughts and memories. This enables Thomas to intelligently transport us far beyond the theatre into the lives of each protagonist.
The Performance is book of contrasts. The sweltering heat of the night versus the chill of the theatre with air-conditioning turned down too low. The glare of the stage lights versus the darkness of the theatre and the distant hovering menace of the bushfires. How we portray ourselves versus our inescapable humanity. Secrecy versus freedom. Denial versus honesty.
On the stage, Winnie's black handbag contains a plethora of ordinary and interesting items. While remaining trapped in the ground, she sifts through the contents with alarming optimism. A toothbrush, a hairbrush, a revolver. Each item stimulates Winnie's dialogue and provides a springboard for the protagonists to reflect on their own lives.
And this is where Thomas so cleverly merges her narrative with Beckett's script. What do the items from the handbag symbolise? How does Winnie's fascination with each object relate to the distractions and excuses we use in our own lives? And what does Winnie's husband, Willie represent? Winnie is "grateful to him for being there, despite his barely animate responses". But does he love her as much as he claims? Or is he happy to keep her restricted? And what does his presence as an "absent and useless male" say about women's and men's roles in society?
Winnie's "concern for him is greater than the concern she had(s) for herself". Her unfailing optimism, despite her dire circumstances, is disturbing, and it's meant to be. Thomas wants us, like her protagonists, to reflect on society and our own situations. Winnie's "genitals are inaccessible", buried under the ground, and Willie is only minimally interested in her. Does this mean that women are not interesting if they are sexually unavailable?
There are multiple large themes at play in The Performance, and they are astutely tackled without ever becoming didactic. Women's place in society. What we accept. How we fool ourselves. Disempowerment and our own role in this. Distraction with beauty and appearance. The way we rely on routine to prop us up, but how this traps us within the same patterns. Mental health issues in our damaged imperfect world.
Clearly, the performance is not just taking place on the stage. The characters in the audience are part of the performance too, as are we, the readers.
Ultimately, like the characters, we all have hidden parts of ourselves which we must eventually confront. Thomas asks us to explore ourselves in order to understand who we are. Then she encourages us to "tell your story. But which one? We need to choose our story, and recognise it, in order to tell it to anyone else. And then how to tell it? When to tell it?"
This is a masterful work. Highly recommended.
- Karen Viggers writes contemporary literary fiction. Her latest novel is "The Orchardist's Daughter".
