Some stories are too ridiculous to be fiction. Furious Mattress, a surreal collision of true crime and religious fervour from lauded Australian playwright Melissa Reeves (co-writer of the multi-award-winning Who’s Afraid of the Working Class), is based on one of those stories. In this case, Victorian woman Joan Vollmer was inadvertently killed by her husband Ralph and two of their fundamentalist neighbours as the result of a four-day “exorcism”. Joan’s husband believed she had been possessed by a demon, despite her history with schizophrenia. And no, this didn’t happen in the 1800s, or even the early 1900s – it happened in 1993.
A surreal recreation of Joan Vollmer’s story laced with dark humour and a clever circular story structure, Reeves’ play finally makes its highly anticipated Sydney premiere at Belvoir 25a, presented by Legit Theatre Co (Dumb Kids, Misery Loves Company). We begin at the end, with husband Pierce and his pious neighbour Anna praying and singing over the suspiciously still body of his wife, Else. What follows is the sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious attempt to rid Else’s body of demons – at first depicted in a naturalist style, and then warping and melding into unreality.
Pierce (Julian Garner) and Anna (Alex Malone) are both played with a heightened sense of Australiana: broad accents, dry humour, and constant observations of the heat. Meanwhile, plumber-turned-exorcist Max (Shan-Ree Tan) is gruff and awful, and his vulnerability quickly becomes obvious.
The magic and stagecraft of this production is a horrific delight (despite the set design occasionally hindering the views in Belvoir’s tiny downstairs theatre). The stage is encased in an unfinished wooden frame, edged by a foam rear wall and foam flooring. There’s a cross embedded above the door – where Else supposedly speared it – and the “furious mattress” of the bed takes up most of the stage.
The action unfolds quickly, and the cast brings a poignant sense of earnestness to their increasingly absurd performances. However, there’s a sense that the more surreal scenes call for more extremism. Some of the humour doesn’t quite land, and there’s a somewhat underdeveloped approach to the wackiness. Some restraint in the opening scenes might allow the surreal elements to shine more clearly, preventing them from getting lost amongst the laughs at Pierce and Anna’s expense.
Nonetheless, this production of Furious Mattress is a satisfyingly gruesome one that finally brings Reeves’ weirdness to a Sydney stage. It’s also a fascinating exploration of the lengths we will go to “fix” problems we don’t understand, and the stronghold that fear can have on us.
It’s a good time for Sydney’s theatregoers to sink their teeth into some Australian working class theatre history, with Love, a piece of similar renown by Reeves’ colleague, Patricia Cornelius, playing on the Old Fitz stage (March 11–21).
Furious Mattress is playing downstairs at Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills, until March 29. Tickets are on sale over here.
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