Cate Blanchett at the Barbican

This is the story of a woman with two vices: she is a slave to words – loves to talk but has no one to talk to, and she loves to help people – but no one wants her help. These cost her her marriage. We first meet her on a holiday in Marrakesh, alone, not joining in on any activities, only eavesdropping on the “amazing” voices she hears on the terrace. Back home, she is thrown out of her home to wander among people searching for a soul she can talk to and help, all in vain.

The story is a splendid vehicle for Cate Blanchett to showcase her talents: not only in her range of voice and vocal expression, her communicative facial expressions, but her body language which documents her increasing psychosis as she is rejected by one person after another – fellow tenants, primary school friend, pick-up lover and long-lost brother. But the interesting thing is that these people and others along the way (including an absolutely ingenious pup tent as a character) are equally weird in their own manner, making one reassess just who is normal in this psychological thriller.

The staging for this play was minimal, with one or two props per scene. Sitting in the upper circle gave an added perspective, for though one had to use binoculars to see Cate’s face, her body was projected against the black box of the stage as an insect under the microscope. It was like watching an ant in an increasingly frantic death dance, as Cate minced and flailed across the stage like Jack Black – a puppet on a string. (Ok, so you didn’t see the Orange ad for Black’s appearance in “Gulliver’s Travels”…)

One wonders about the title. A line from Cate’s character Lotte in the play may give a hint: she feels her husband is out to make her “small”, implying he is a “big” journalist. The Barbican press release casts her as an Alice in Wonderland, “sometimes Lotte is too big for her surroundings and sometimes too small to be noticed within them.” But I prefer to think of the details of life overwhelming Cate as the ‘small’, while the ‘large’ is the existential angst of us all trying to find our place in the world. To which Lotte would say, “Oh, what big words, Amazing!”.

The audience for this play on a Sunday afternoon was astonishingly male, probably 70-80%, all coming to see Cate on a off-work day. They gave her many ululations and a standing ovation for what was surely an outstanding performance. Well done, Cate!

“Gross und Klein” by Botho Strauss, in English translation by Martin Crimp, produced by the Sydney Theatre Company, directed by Luc Bondy. At the Barbican through April 29th.