Salford Arts Theatre
The 2021 Greater Manchester Fringe Festival began on Wednesday 1st September and runs until Thursday 30th September. After the tribulations of 2020, it’s great to see that this year’s programme is impressively varied. And as in previous years, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer throughout the month for this blog and for North Manchester FM.
On Friday 3rd September, I was at Salford Arts Theatre to review Subdural Hematoma, a one-woman show written and performed by Eleanor May Blackburn, and directed by Jack Victor Price. Before I start my review of the show, I’m just going to start by saying how lovely it was to be back at the Salford Arts Theatre again. Since I started reviewing theatre for North Manchester FM, I’ve been to quite a few shows at Salford Arts Theatre (Greater Manchester Fringe plays, but others as well) and – I know I probably shouldn’t have favourites – but it is one of my favourite Fringe venues. The last time I was at the theatre was the 2019 Fringe, so it was amazing to be able to go back again. Theatre and the performing arts generally have been so sorely hit by the uncertainty of Covid and lockdown, so I felt genuinely moved to be back at one of my favourite venues to experience a festival that I’m really very fond of. All credit to everyone at Salford Arts Theatre (and all the other venues) and to the festival organizers for putting on such a varied and interesting programme.
So… let’s talk about Subdural Hematoma, my first bit of Fringe theatre since July 2019… I’ll be playing the radio version of this review on my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special on Saturday 4th September, but here’s the blog version…
As I’ve said, Subdural Hematoma is a solo performance by Blackburn, running at around an hour. It’s also an autobiographical show, which explores Blackburn’s experience of suffering… you guessed it… a subdural hematoma following a traumatic brain injury. Grim stuff, you might think. But it really wasn’t.
Perhaps the word ‘suffering’ was inaccurate here. The show is about Blackburn’s experience of surviving a subdural hematoma. As such, the show is both grim (at times) and celebratory, as well as moving, humorous and engaging.
Blackburn sets the tone of the show by opening with some quite unsettling replications of the noises made by someone struggling for breath. She then removes her top to reveal the words ‘tracheostomy’ and ‘line’ penned on her torso (accompanied by circles identifying the points of surgical entry) and – and this is the part that really set the tone – does a faux sexy dance while announcing them.
The ensuing performance takes us through the weeks Blackburn spent in a coma following a head injury. Much of the narration is a poetic monologue, but this is intercut with sections from a diary (written almost as letters to the patient) kept by her mother during this time and narrated as voiceover, as well as recordings of two other people who suffered subdural hematoma and are reflecting on what happened to them. At times, Blackburn dons a blank white face mask and uses physical performance to evoke the experience of emerging from a coma (something, she explains quite forcefully, that does not happen the way it does in films).
If you heard my reviews from the 2019 Greater Manchester Fringe, then you may remember that the shows I was particularly impressed with at the last festival were all one-woman shows. So it was a pleasure to begin this year’s festival watching another competent and well-crafted solo piece by a young woman with a real knack for compelling storytelling. Blackburn’s performance was engaging and enjoyable throughout, but I was especially taken with the way the story itself was crafted and realized on stage (and this is to the credit of both writer-performer Blackburn, but also Price’s direction).
One of the most impressive things for me was the way that Blackburn was able to narrate an experience in which, though she was undoubtedly the central figure, she played little to no active part. Indeed, as she tells us on a couple of occasions, she cannot actually remember everything that happened to her. It’s an ambitious undertaking to tell a story that you both were and weren’t part of, but this is handled well in Subdural Hematoma.
On the one hand, Blackburn offers us her own direct narration – accompanied by occasional outbursts, some blunt honesty about bodily functions, and a scattering of jokes that are sometimes bleak and sometimes daft – about what she has since learned about what happened. She defines some medical terms, though she dismisses this knowledge with a flippant ‘Thanks Google’, and starkly lays out the initial prognosis given to her parents. On the other hand, the voiceover diary entries undermine this directness, turning the story into something that was happening to Blackburn, something that could only really be described by someone else.
The use of the face mask is effective in bridging the gap between these two different narratives. When she dons the mask, Blackburn embodies a sort of uncanny ‘in between’ state where she is enacting, but not verbalizing, an unnerving and sometimes incoherent bodily experience. She is still clearly the same performer – Blackburn is on stage, alone and visible, for the entire show – but the mask serves to deindividualize her. (There’s also a bit with some tinsel strands that I really liked – but I don’t think I’ll spoiler that for you!)
It has to be said, there are some pretty striking tonal shifts in Subdural Hematoma, but they aren’t uncomfortably jarring. I found the diary entries to be particularly moving – I did get a lump in my throat at one point – but the move from that to a pretend stand-up routine of bad coma jokes was smooth. The show makes no bones about its autobiographical content, and Blackburn’s honest performance engages us in a way that lets us see these tonal changes as part of a rollercoaster of genuine emotions, rather than an attempt to shock or unsettle the audience.
One of the things that struck me afterwards, when I reflected on the emotional content of Subdural Hematoma, was the striking lack of anger. Although there are places where Blackburn rails against some specific details of the physical experience of being comatose – and one point where she expresses a momentary sense of unfairness that she, as a young woman, was in a hospital ward with women who were both older and less ill than herself – this is not a show that wallows in the cruelty or injustice of the situation. The overarching sense we get is that the brain injury was something that happened – just that – and the focus is on survival and recovery.
Again, it’s Blackburn’s performance as much as the writing that carries this. When she comes close to addressing the unfairness of the situation, she interrupts herself (or is interrupted by a voiceover) about another small improvement in her condition – she’s moved her foot or used an oxygen mask rather than a ventilator, for instance. Blackburn captures the enormity of these apparently tiny physical changes with a gleeful and infectious enthusiasm that encourages the audience to cheer along with her success (indeed, she directly instructs us to cheer along at one point!).
For me, that was the strongest part of Subdural Hematoma – its balancing act between the almost inconceivable enormity of the near-death experience and the small intimacies of a dad reading Harry Potter to his injured child or a mum finding fairy lights for a hospital bed gives the show a charming authenticity and familiarity.
Overall, I really enjoyed Subdural Hematoma. Blackburn’s storytelling is assured and well-realized, and her performance throughout is compelling. I’m glad this was my first Fringe show of the year, as it reminded me why I like this festival so much and why I’m pleased it’s back for 2021!
Subdural Hematoma was on at Salford Arts Theatre on 3rd September, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.
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