Vivienne Franzmann developed the play as a result of time spent working with women in prisons. She was deeply affected by the lives of the people she met and was moved to tell their story. Pests examines the damaged lives that emerge from childhood neglect and abuse through the eyes of two young women who are fighting to survive.
From the bag she carries we can see that a heavily pregnant Rolly has just been released from prison and she descends on her sister for a place to stay. Pink’s flat, in Joanna Scotcher’s design, resembles landfill nestling in a maze of plumbing. Grubby mattresses with their stuffing spilling out across the floor are strewn with the detritus of a disordered life – food cartons, bottles and cans and bits of leftover pizza. The walls have been pared away to a skeleton of plumbing and wiring.
As they describe it Rolly and Pink don’t live here, they nest, and there is something in the way they clamber about the disarray that transforms them into nesting rodents – suggestive of the pests of the title.
Rolly was fostered as a child while Pink remained in care, but despite this separation the siblings have remained interdependent. They have also developed their own language that is both aggressively defiant and strangely childlike. As well as the horrors of the past that haunt them are flashes of something that seem like happy childhood memories of the Wizard of Oz.
Whilst inside, Rolly has swapped her old drug addiction for a dependency on prescriptions meds and she has aspirations of finding “jobbage” and turning her life around. Pink, meanwhile, is still stuck in a cycle of abusive relationships and her own addiction. In her lucid moments she joins her sister in looking to a better future but withdrawal, alternating with chemically-induced oblivion, drag her back to darker places and threaten to take Rolly with her.
Fabiana Piccioli’s lighting, combined with video projections by Kim Beveridge and sound design from Emma Laxton, periodically immerse the set in a psychedelic haze that reflect Pink’s altered states of mind.
Ellie Kendrick and Sinéad Matthews as Rollie and Pink deliver a mesmerising double act. In the post-show discussion they spoke about the language of the play which they had to get to grips with in the early stages of rehearsal. There is certainly a distinct rhythm and poetry in the dialect that Franzmann has invented for her characters and once you get used to it (it takes a few minutes) it defines both their individuality and the bond between them. This is a very physical piece and apparently they have sensibly avoided scheduling more than one performance each day.
This sort of material running at 100 minutes with no interval sounds like a heavy evening, but with writing and performances like these it is compelling viewing and perfectly suited to the intimacy of the Studio space.
Last year, in Melody Loses her Mojo from 20 Stories High, we were introduced to some teenagers leaving care, one separated from her younger sister who found foster parents. We were left there with hopes that they would go on to find a happier life, while Pests shows us the fallout when young people don’t get the right kind of support and encouragement.
Clean Break use their work with those at risk of stumbling into a life of offending and dependency to help them build more positive futures. Anyone in need of convincing that society needs theatre should look at this and see just how powerful it can be.
Pests is at Liverpool Playhouse Studio till Saturday 31st May.
It will continue to The Drum, Plymouth 3rd to 7th June and Birmingham Rep 11th to 14th June.
For further details, see http://www.cleanbreak.org.uk
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