Theatre review: Batshit’s surreal mashup packs a deeply affecting punch
At The Cultch, removable limbs, retro TV shows, and absurd cabaret numbers about female madness frame a genuinely unsettling story of a grandmother’s institutionalization
Leah Shelton in Batshit. Photo by Pia Johnson
The Cultch presents Batshit at the Historic Theatre to February 15 as part of the Warrior Festival
LEAH SHELTON’S RIVETING Batshit is so full of visual sensations, unsettling information, and surreal innovation that you’ll find yourself unpacking the tight, 50-minute experience days later.
The most surprising element may be the emotional wallop, which is enhanced by the surreal, David Lynch–worthy mix of cabaret songs, retro TV ads, pop-culture namechecks, and special effects.
On one level, Shelton is telling a moving personal story about her grandmother, a 1960s farm housewife whose wish to leave her husband led to incarceration in a psychiatric institution, drugging, and electroshock therapy. On another level, the performer tackles the larger history of a society and global medical system that have long mistreated women deemed “crazy” and hysterical—especially if they refuse to conform.
It’s thrilling to watch the Australia-based artist go at her well-researched material from all angles, gleefully mashing media and forms. One brilliant sequence of physical clowning gives life to a “wandering womb” underneath a green straitjacket, while a medical “expert” pontificates on the syndrome. Shelton makes it clear that the problem starts at a societal level: cue an old Down Under TV news streeter in which a reporter asks passersby if housewives are “bored”.
For a sense if how darkly absurd things get, take the opening number, in which Shelton appears as a perfect midcentury glamour girl in a poofy green gown, singing Judy Garland’s impossibly upbeat “Get Happy”. In her mouth is the kind of gag once used in psychiatric institutions—and at the end of one eerily elongated, removable arm, she clutches an axe.
Among Batshit’s most unforgettable passages are the ones where Shelton reads the patronizing doctors’ notes in her grandmother’s records, the words appearing in their blurry typewriter text on the large screen at the back of the stage. Flashing lights and electric jolt sounds punctuate every prescribed regimen of electroshock—even after observations that the recipient is losing her memory and is seriously unwell. It’s visceral and shattering.
Shelton and director Ursula Martinez package it all in a room straight out of Sartre’s No Exit, lined with white clinical tiles and featuring a psychiatrist’s couch at centre stage. Everything unfolds in a heightened universe, with Shelton spending most of the work in her Betty White wig as our warm, eccentric, ever-smiling hostess.
The stylized, "crazy" world somehow makes the rawer, realer bits hit even harder than they would in a straight-up, documentary telling. It’s only February, but this will be remembered as one of the best shows this year—a triumph that will have you grateful for batshit women everywhere. 
Related Articles
