Sleep is one of the most innocuous of biological responses we share.
It’s routine; the turn of day to night simply symbolic of our eventual, peaceful slumbers.
So what of the insomniac, the eternal night owl, and outsider, for whom such peace evades?
In an exploration of this restless disposition, Fleur Kilpatrick has created Insomnia Cat Came To Stay.
Sleep certainly isn’t the kind of topic reserved for performance, where such commonplace behaviours are shunned in preference to theatricality (after all, sleep itself, is hardly the kind of reaction you’d hope to elicit from an audience).
And yet, as Insomnia Cat Came to Stay proves, sleep deprivation and the dissolution of routine can prove remarkable inspiration for creativity.
Fleur Kilpatrick’s collage of anecdotal monologues interspersed with song (most notably The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction) is a 50-minute exploration into her past battles with insomnia, and in turn, a broader examination of that overlooked dance we all play with the Sandman every night.
In concentrating on her personal struggles with that most ubiquitous custom sleep, Kilpatrick connects with the audience in a surprisingly intimate and relatable way. After all, haven’t we all at some time faced our turn to sleep with vengeful, regretful or questioning eyes?
Kilpatrick’s Insomnia Cat Came to Stay is therefore performed in appropriately intimate terms, staged as a one-woman show at Loop, in the bar’s tiny theatre, with room for an audience of only 25 at least. It is literally theatre’s guise of pillow talk.
Notably, Kilpatrick’s performance is accompanied by Thomas Russell’s outstanding animations. The perfect visual compliment to Kilpatrick’s musings, his illustrations projected onto Kilpatrick’s body throughout, the scattered (borderline frantic) imagery reflecting the mania of an insomniac perfectly, shifting seamlessly between the figurative and abstract like that of a dream itself.
Filled with dark humour and sentimental reflection, Kilpatrick’s multimedia creation is a hybrid of performance, music and animation.
Highly recommended for any enthusiast of drama as anecdotal, introspective reflection.
