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POSTED: 21 OCT 08

Donna Brooks ... remember her name.

Beginner at Life

(TAP Gallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney, until 1 November)

Getting off the beaten track is a well accepted tip for travellers looking for unexpected and delightful new experiences. The same holds true for theatre goers.

The truism was proved by a theatre experience at the TAP Gallery, in Darlinghurst's Palmer Street, this month when Beginner at Life, a one-woman play by Canadian writer Alana Ruben Free, opened for the first time in Australia, and also for the first time was performed by an actor other than the writer herself — which must have been challenging for Alana, who was present on the night.

The TAP Gallery has a small theatre hiding up a narrow staircase and along a slender hallway. It has no high-tech machinery or revolving stage, but this production needed none of that to impress the audience with its worth.

The one-woman performance by Donna Brooks — remember her name — is so dramatically sound that the lack of facilities is irrelevant.

The play is about overcoming anorexia and while it is the writer’s personal story, it touches a universal theme of dealing with a crippling mental disease.

The portrayal by Donna Brooks of the emotions, anxieties, intellectual demands, social interchanges and personal interactions at different stages of the illness and recovery is utterly convincing.

Director Bryan Cutts has adeptly used minimalist stage props, lighting, and positioning in a clever way to remove any ambiguity between the various characters Donna portrays or the changes in time and location that fill the play.

Light is cast on to the condition of the anorexic sufferer, and the difficulties faced.

Like recovery from many addictions and mental illnesses, the ultimate strength of the individual in the process is critical. Donna Brooks showed that in spades.