Psycho Or Psychic theatre review: A strange descent
Sarah Francis commands the stage in a bizarre and hilarious solo performance about a woman who may or may not be speaking with the dead.
Opening on the cross-legged figure of Luna, lost in her own mind, there’s an immediate awareness that you’ve become just as trapped as she is thanks to entering The Lab at Fool’s Paradise. Masterfully performed and conceptualised by Sarah Francis, solo show Psycho Or Psychic is a fascinatingly bizarre documentation of a girl’s ability to speak with disembodied souls. The resulting performance feels like a slip in consciousness, the yawning spaces around her dancing and writhing, forming an externalisation of her fragmented lived experience.
Costume changes indicate passages of time and lights symbolise ghostly visitors intercepting her trains of thought. Francis’ stage presence and choreographed absurdity make a show that’s simultaneously confronting and hilarious: you never know what she’s going to do next. It’s a thrill being so constantly surprised.
Audience interaction is a key element of the show, going as far as allowing a few lucky participants to become characters within Luna’s life. Francis also perfectly handles audience members who are not up for taking to the stage, and her transitions from scene to scene are so natural you altogether forget she’s having to work with the unpredictability of a crowd. In fact, the more confused the participant, the more entombed in Luna’s headspace we feel; genius.
You won’t have all the answers by the time this show ends. Yet, in the act of not trying to understand the incomprehensible, you’ll at least get to experience Luna’s clear glee at basking in the inexplicable.
Psycho Or Psychic continues at Henry’s and the Ballroom at Ayers House and Upstairs at the Duke of York Hotel until March 22.