Grief is the Thing with Feathers Review: Belvoir St Theatre

Grief is the Thing with Feathers was like walking into a decrepit alleyway and finding a beautifully frosted and delicate sponge cake. Would you eat it? Chuck it? Smash it? Adore it?  

Grief is the Thing with Feathers is a story about a husband who loses a wife, two boys who lose their mother and an unconventional babysitter who drags them through grief, across fairy tales, over memories, under the grotesque and into another place with maybe a bit more light and bit less feathers.

Although I’ve tried my best to summarise the play above, I will admit it is hard to articulate the thing that it was, for what it was was two things, maybe even three or four or potentially even five things. It was life. It was death. It was gruesome. It was gentle. It was all these things held in beautiful parallel to each other. I feel the play held a spotlight to the idea that no feeling is alone, in grief there can be hope and in decay there is loveliness, even if it wears the cloak of a crow and smells a bit rotten. 

Images (c) Brett Boardman

The design of this show is something to be rivalled, from Nick Schlieper elegant lighting design, to the transportive video and illustrations from Craig Wilkinson and Jon Weber, everything flowed with beautiful synergy to produce something straight out of the Brothers Grimm. Coupled with the set from Simon Phillips and Schlieper, everything felt perfectly English and perfectly held in the space between old and new memories. 

Something I would be remiss not to comment on is the acting ability and vocal work of the actors involved. Toby Schmitz held the audience in rapt fascination the whole night, gracefully transforming between an unravelling Father trying to piece himself together and what can only be described as a gangster crow, that I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with. The vocal choices used by Schmitz were fantastic, the voice of the crow was expertly imbued with a good dose of English wit, a heavy handful of violence and a sprinkling of love to transport you into a fairytale. The two sons Fraser Morrison and Philip Lynch deftly transitioned between the bodies and minds of young boys to men, their aliveness on stage was palpable giving the play exactly what it needed to rival the death in their story. Throughout the performance Freya Schack-Arnott graced us with the cello, coating the stage with her ghostly melody. It was hard not to imagine Schack-Arnott and her music as the embodiment of their Mother, watching over them, listening to their stories. Maybe that was intended or perhaps not, but needless to say the culmination of these performances felt otherworldly, yet so tragically and beautifully human. 

Images (c) Brett Boardman

One thing to note is I went in not knowing anything. I hadn’t read a synopsis or plot or even the book, so there were parts of the play where I felt a bit confused, unsure of the metaphor, or if there even was one. Despite trying to claw and hold on to the reality of the play and the bits that made sense, I felt that I understood, not in the literal sense but in the emotional. The acting, the writing, the design all held itself to such a standard of the whole complete picture that even in my moments of confusion the feeling of what it was shone through. Which is what I'd say a perfect example of magical realism looks like and Grief is the Thing with Feathers was a masterclass in magical realism. 

If you love someone, if you miss someone, if you take solace in the bizarre and wonderful or if you've ever had visions of a mystical and somewhat mean crow at your bedside then this show is for you. Watch it with a full heart, open eyes and head full of feathers.

5 Stars!

Buy tickets to Grief is the Thing with Feathers here.