09/04/2024, 13:49 The Wonderful World of Dissocia review – whimsical and brutal | Theatre | The Guardian

Theatre

This article is more than 1 year old

Review

The Wonderful World of Dissocia review –

whimsical and brutal

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London

At first, Anthony Neilson’s play is a bewildering affair, but its
sombre aftermath imparts understanding with crushing effect

Arifa Akbar
Fri 23 Sep 2022 13.09 BST

A
nthony Neilson’s 2004 drama about dissociative identity disorder is a
reminder to never judge a play at the interval. It is certainly tempting to
write the whole thing off as we are dragged through the irrational and
kooky first half. Everything changes in the short, stark, second act and
radically transforms our experience.

Leah Harvey plays Lisa, a woman who falls down the rabbit hole of her mental
illness into a fantasy world of surreal creatures, from a sexually violent goat to a bear
singing about brain death. The borrowed motifs from other lands are easy to spot,
from Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland to CS Lewis’s Narnia and Eugène Ionesco’s

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/23/the-wonderful-world-of-dissocia-review-theatre-royal-stratford-east-london 1/4
09/04/2024, 13:49 The Wonderful World of Dissocia review – whimsical and brutal | Theatre | The Guardian

absurdist universe, all set against flat picture-book backdrops (designed by Grace
Smart).

Directed by Emma Baggott, this feels naively charming at first, then befuddling and
finally infuriating with its surfeit of whimsy. The laddish toilet humour is uncouth,
the linguistic jokes try too hard: there are “time flies”, which buzz around at times of
happiness, and insecurity guards (“If it’s secure why would you have to guard it?”).

It is clear this world is allegorical but the signposting seems deliberately withheld. A
character defining the meaning of a wild goose chase says it is when “you are
hunting for nothing” and it feels like a description of this play as it descends into
ever more random circles of phantasmagoria.

The second half is as sombre as the first is lurid, showing Lisa inside a psychiatric
ward. The repetition of days filled with sleep, medication and desultory staff carries
grinding force. The set, now stark, feels like a cell. The psychiatric system is not
shown as especially cruel but appears no less heinous for its indifference and
immobilising medication culture. Lisa lies in a doped state, with moments of
boredom, frustration and loneliness. Her relationships are few now but dramatised
with delicacy.

It feels moving rather than manipulative, as we realise, retrospectively, that we have

been positioned inside Lisa’s head in the first half, experiencing her scrambled
worlds. That these are summoned rather crassly matters less than the meaning its
switching brings. This revival more than stands the test of time in its portrait of
mental illness – it is original, brutal, memorable.

At Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, until 15 October.

This is what we're up against

Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories
they don’t want you to see.
Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about
the climate emergency and other established science.
Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press.
Bad actors spreading disinformation online to undermine democracy.
***
But we have something powerful on our side.
We’ve got you.
The Guardian is funded by readers like you in Brazil and the only person who
decides what we publish is our editor.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/23/the-wonderful-world-of-dissocia-review-theatre-royal-stratford-east-london 2/4
09/04/2024, 13:49 The Wonderful World of Dissocia review – whimsical and brutal | Theatre | The Guardian

If you want to join us in our mission to share independent, global journalism to

the world, we’d love to have you on side.
If you can, please support us on a monthly basis. It takes less than a minute to set
up, and you can rest assured that you’re making a big impact every single month
in support of open, independent journalism. Thank you.

One-time Monthly Annual

$1 $5 Other

Continue Remind me in May

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/23/the-wonderful-world-of-dissocia-review-theatre-royal-stratford-east-london 3/4
09/04/2024, 13:49 The Wonderful World of Dissocia review – whimsical and brutal | Theatre | The Guardian

Most viewed

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/23/the-wonderful-world-of-dissocia-review-theatre-royal-stratford-east-london 4/4