How To Commit Arson In A Loving Way review

Megan O’Neils caustic yet glimmering depiction of depression is a must-watch, voicing the unsaid trivialities and deep exhaustion of living with depression

Kavi Noonan and Emily Gibson on stage - photo by Christopher Lorde

Judith slaying Holofernes, Joy Division’s ‘ Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and the ever-familiar generic therapist room. These are just a few of the rich metaphors which weave themselves through ‘How to Commit Arson in a Loving Way’. Emily Gibson unfalteringly commands the stage as Margot: a twenty-something who, for years, has been embedded in a deep depression.

Despite being only an hour long, the script managed to incorporate many of the predicaments  that come with depression. From the patronising “How are you doing?” and the incessant uninterested clinical recommendations to ‘look at your sleep’, to the hope that the randomly assigned, overworked therapist might be the “priest in this situation and gives [you] salvation.” Ultimately, it comes down to just wanting to be seen. Megan O’Neil’s script and direction translate the very authentic but ‘difficult-to-admit’ need to be understood without having to explain for the 100th time that you are depressed and the desperation to be recognised.

“Perhaps the therapist never truly sees Margot, but the play does see those struggling with depression, in a poetic candour that is unmissable on the stage.” 

O’Neils script takes some inspiration from Ottessa Moshfeg’s ‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’. Yet unlike Moshfeg’s protagonist, O’Neil’s Margot is not rich viewing therapy as a detached, capitalist cog pushing you back to work. There is no genuine effort towards you being happy or even an attempts to make things less bleak. Kavi Noonan embodies the role of the smarmy therapist well, aptly adorned in a half zip, taking what seems to be pages of detailed notes only to interject Margot’s monologues with pitiful but all too recognised suggestions of pills and better sleep.

Ambitiously the play commits itself to a rendition of ‘Judith Slaying Holofornes’ which sees Margot take on the role of Judith and kill Holofornes ( another commendable transition from Noonan accompanied by a convincing ensemble). In this fantasy we see Margot kill her therapist, albeit in her mind humourous as a 15th-century army general, but the genuine anger is there.

Noonan also takes on the role of death, represented by a somewhat comic grim reaper mask and axe, who Margot sees as a partner. This unreliable ally loiters in and out of her life, yet always lurking in the background. The departure from the overplayed, devilish Death to one that is subtle and somewhat amiable, is another careful choice that plays out well on the stage.

Margot’s character, powerfully embodied by Gibson, expresses the nonsensicality of it all gloriously: the complete and utter despair with the world, the unbelievable and overwhelming devastation at the hands of humans intermingled with your personal tragedies, that lead you to look for a lifeline in an office, a non-descript yet simultaneously distinguishable office to combat it all.

Margot begins to see some expression of the infamous ‘hope’, following a telephone call from her younger self. Her incredibly complex monologues are complemented by simpler, noteworthy lines. The liminal stage between thinking and doing has found us all overstaying from one time to another, whether it be before a quickly approaching essay deadline or deciding if you really want to go to Revs tonight or if Ticketbridge can restore your finances. Except when you are depressed you find that this liminal stage, which you normally escape either by begrudgingly doing the essay or going out, becomes far more permanent.

At first, this permanency is a comfort but sooner or later it is a thick fog which seems to have no way out. You find yourself bedridden unable to move, the slightest action feeling as if it will be destructive whilst your inaction quietly and unknowingly destroys you. These are difficult, complex states and feelings to convey within the confines of a play but O’Neil’s direction guarantees you to be moved and in spite of the bleakness, leaving the audience inspired. Perhaps the therapist never truly sees Margot, but the play does see those struggling with depression, in a poetic candour that is unmissable on the stage.