The Bleeding Tree by Angus Cerini. Southwark Plahouse, the Little. 77 Newington Causeway, London SE1 to 22 June 2024.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“The blackest of black comedies.”

Life in the Australian bush is harsh. Mum and her daughters Ida and Ada have a problem. Mum has killed her brutal husband. How to dispose of his body? The corpse ends up festering by the bleeding tree consumed by the wild life, by the chickens who roam the yard, and it has to be hidden when neighbours come to call and an explanation for his absence – he has gone north to visit family they say – has to be given. Director Sophia Drake treats the play as a kind of spoken rather than sung chorale for three performers. The voices of the visitors, a neighbour , a woman with a cake and a collection of cash gathered by their friends to help them out, a policeman who comes to ask about the missing man, are supplied by one of the daughters. The result is extremely black and very funny as they almost chant the lines. Mariah Gale as Mum, Elizabeth Dulau as Ida and Alexandra Jensen as Ada play their roles beautifully. Mum, downtrodden once, now rampant as she has done the unthinkable, is clearly at the end of her tether, but capable of rising to the challenges the visitors, not to mention the corpse, present. The daughters Ida and Ada, one petulant, one, the younger it seems, scared stiff, are also perfectly created by Dulau and Jensen. As well as ending inside the chickens, parts of Dad gets chopped up and put in a stew for supper. This award winning play, first produced in 2015 at the SBW Stables Theatre in Sydney, has been slow in coming here but better late than never. A black comedy to relish proves one of the best works staged in the Little of late. It really deserves the tag - unmissable. Clever set, well lit, great performances, seamless direction.

Cast

Mariah Gale – Mum.

Elizabeth Dulau – Ida.

Alexandra Jensen – Ada.

Creatives

Director – Sophie Drake.

Set & Costume Designer- Jasmine Swan.

Movement Director – Iskander R. Sharazuddin.

Composer & Sound Designer – Asaf Zohar.