The Damage Is Done theatre review: Laughing through the pain
Katherine Sortini’s raw and darkly funny solo show unpacks family trauma
It’s a horror movie in slow motion and a painstakingly funny slice of life. Competitive Isadora, one of two daughters in an Italian-Australian household, appears on stage undeniably starved of something. Yet what could possibly satiate an entire life lived in deprivation is far harder to work out from the sculpted, agonised smile on her face.
Written and exceptionally performed by Katherine Sortini, solo show The Damage Is Done explores the fallout of an unveiled family secret which gives a forgotten daughter her first taste of favouritism. Revelling in her family’s chaos, revealing the sexual orientation Isadora has long hidden finally feels worth it for a chance at the love she seeks. Sortini’s rug-pull comes as Isadora is violently denied this; deprived of the only approval Isadora has ever dared covet, her world shatters.
This show makes you laugh until you cry, and cry until you’re bereft of any more tears. Sortini’s performance is hilariously real and raw, personifying the feeling of an ache you fear is incurable. Fully immersed, you’re never once allowed a chance to doubt that what you see is anything other than Isadora’s reality. Yet in the end, Sortini allows us to realise that the love Isadora seeks might be something she needs to give other people first. If it is a reality of life that damage will find us all, Sortini unflinchingly challenges that truth, with the simple suggestion that assuming anyone is broken is what truly holds us back.
The Damage Is Done concluded at Studio Theatre at Goodwood Theatre and Studios on March 15; picture: Jamois.