As The Spare Room closes (one of my favourite shows of the year so far), another literary adaptation— Grief is the Thing with Feathers—opens, at Upstairs Belvoir. The 2015 verse novel by British writer Max Porter depicts how a widowed father, left alone with two young sons, is haunted by a Crow. Co-Produced by Andrew Henry Presents, Grief is Directed by Simon Phillips and adapted together by Phillips, Nick Schlieper and Toby Schmitz (who all, also, do other creative roles).

The book is a seemingly ambitious challenge to adapt to stage, jumping between three distinct storytelling modes. One: Toby Schmitz as grieving widower, remembering his wife and overwhelmed at the impossibility of “moving on”. Two: Toby Schmitz as ‘Crow’ (based on a figure from Ted Hughes’ poetry) a fantastical figure who haunts the grieving family. Three: Two young brothers, (played by adult performers Fraser Morrison and Phillip Lynch) try to cope with their own grief, and understand why their father is acting strangely. 

The writing, and by extension the production overall, is uneven to me. Over 100 minutes, there are little moments of heart-wrenching devastation, performed by an exemplary cast of three (plus a live Cellist Freya Schack-Arnott, who also composed). However, just as a moment sucks you in, the script jerks you out of it, and into something else. This staccato style felt very emotionally unsatisfying, despite a very moving lead performance from Schmitz. The crow metaphor, and the choice to have Schmitz play both figures, didn’t fully work for me, despite Schmitz’s dexterity.

I was most affected by the earnest quiet moments, as these men tried to wrestle with their grief. As Schmitz describes how he will eventually stop finding his wife’s hairs around the house, I was floored. It’s the simple images that work the best, and anyone who has ever lived with a partner will be moved by it. Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, came to mind, as both plays look at the domesticity of grief. 

The two boys (Morrison and Lynch), with their childlike view of tragedy, are also very absorbing. I was reminded of Sean Baker’s The Florida Project, and also 25A’s recent POV: kids trying their best to wrestle with the Big Adult Things happening around them, that they can’t fully understand. 

Designers do strong work here all round, led with clarity by Phillips. Sound and composition play a key role in jumping between chapters of the story, with unnerving sound design by Daniel Herten. Lighting, (Nick Schlieper), Costume (Ella Butler), Set (Phillips and Schlieper) all create a bleak London domesticity, both abstract and lived-in. Craig Wilkinson’s Video Design of Jon Weber’s illustrations, is one of the best demonstrations of projection in live performance that I’ve seen in Sydney: restrained, intentional and elegant. 

Ultimately, I don’t tend to resonate with emotionally intense plays that jerk in and out of the drama, preferring writing that lets you sit in the pathos (like Thomas Weatherall’s Blue, another Upstairs Belvoir play about men and their grief). The direction is confident and the performances are devastating, the writing just didn’t hold my attention. 

Jo Bradley