A rich metaphorical dreamscape
Marin, 16, queer, and in love, escapes into a dreamworld deep within herself after a heated confrontation with her parents. There she meets the enigmatic Lady Nightshade, a poised magical being emerging like a woodland deity, who guides Marin as she confronts distorted versions of the struggles she faces in reality: her parents’ behaviour, a peer’s bullying, and the challenge of embracing an identity that doesn’t conform to the world around her.
In Lulla, presented by Flaming Theatre, playwright Ben SantaMaria and director Martha J. Baldwin craft a world of surreal, nature-infused scenery, elevated through expressive physical storytelling and poetic language sprinkled with nursery rhymes and lullabies. The metaphorical nature of the piece is enthralling, and we witness Marin’s coming-of-age story unfold through a dark fantasy.
Marin’s journey is haunted by memories and creatures alike: a pale-faced humanoid twitching towards her as in a nightmare, the loving yet elusive presence of a long-gone grandmother, and puppet-like versions of her parents. It is a vivid, unsettling landscape.
Lulla is a production where every individual element is working. The writing contains powerful moments that shriek the frustration of a queer young woman trapped in a world shaped by convention and desperate for normality; in its most poetic passages, the storytelling becomes enigmatic and delicious.
The performances are equally strong. Playing Marin, Anna Marks Pryce’s stamina is an astonishing feat, never allowing the pace to falter and fully embodying Marin’s emotional struggle. Her inner turmoil becomes something tangible, and we watch her grow from a passive individual into someone who finally takes charge of her narrative.
Around her, Meg Walls, Robin Berry and Madeleine MacMahon multirole as Marin’s first love, her parents and the elusive creatures inhabiting the dream world ⎯ sweeping across the stage to lift Marin in scenes charged with delirium, stuck in eerie, puppet-like movements, or taking turns to embody the mysterious Lady Nightshade. Each a compelling physical storyteller, they build and sustain the production’s uncanny atmosphere.
With Isabella Van Braeckel’s set and costume design, Nat Norland’s sound design, and Skylar Turnbull Hurd’s lighting, Lulla creates a rich metaphorical dreamscape. The production shines with each of these individual elements coming together.
Yet while the production succeeds in conjuring an absorbing dreamscape, the meaning of the adventure that takes place within it remains somewhat obscure. It’s clear we’re witnessing a coming-of-age journey, but the striking imagery spirals around itself too much before taking an exit avenue. When it finally does, the family dynamic in Marin’s home is drastically different without a compelling reason. Reality and subconscious seem to function as two separate journeys: we begin and end in the former, and spend almost the entire play in the latter, but the dream doesn’t weave itself convincingly back into reality. It feels like too much trust has been placed in metaphor, and not as much in an evolving plot line.
Still, Lulla invites us into a world beyond literality, where nature, gender and identity echo one another. It’s imagination made tangible, as theatre magic can.
Lulla runs through July 10th at Omnibus Theatre. Tickets here.