A suicidal monkey as the salvation of humanity, the proof that God exists and thus that life after death is real. This hero of mankind doesn’t appear tall and muscled with a trademark cape billowing in the wind.  The tiny primate ‘ghost loris’ doesn’t have super powers; it doesn’t even exist.

Yet the monkey with bulging yellow eyes, blue face and black fur acts as the pivot of Gilbert is Dead, an original play by director Robert Wolstenholme and writer Robin French, which is set in the Victorian era. The ghost loris springs to life from the imagination of the then 12 year old Lucille (Kate Burdette), deeply worried about her father Lucius’ (Ronan Vibert) state of mind after the death of her mother. Since Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species, the existence of God and the afterlife has been doubted by the people. Assigned to the secret mission of finding the ghost loris by Queen Victoria, the fictive explorer Gilbert sets out to find the equally fictive monkey in order to send it to the taxidermist Lucius Trickett for preservation. Lucius is oblivious to the truth, not realizing that Gilbert’s letters are in fact crafted by his own daughter, the mission being a farce.

What gives the monkey such a death-wish? The primate’s whole body is a funny bone; every small movement serves not to generate amusement, but to be a catalyst for agony. Faced with this unbearable fate, the ghost loris chooses to loosen its little fingers gripping the vines in the jungle and crashes to the ground. This is not only a death sentence for the unhappy monkey but also for Darwin’s theory of evolution: Built upon the assumption that all beings crave life, it has no choice but to crumble when faced with a suicidal animal.

That’s what the characters in Gilbert is Dead believe, anyway. This whimsical ‘counterevidence’ can clearly only be taken seriously in a comedy. It seems absurd to an almost tragic extent. However, it’s a means to an end in the play, which is a tragi-comedy, therefore mirroring this ridiculous proof quite fittingly.

For the majority of the play, however, the audience knows nothing about the fictive nature of the ghost loris. The difference remains unrevealed until the very end of the play, when it takes a sudden 180 degree turn from jaunty comedy to tremendous tragedy.

Director Robert Wolstenholme manages to draw the entire audience in, quite an achievement given the range of ages and backgrounds assembled in the small theatre in Hoxton Hall. The audience certainly had a good time, breaking out in laughter several times during the play, not least during a ukulele performance by Queen Victoria and the ridiculous first appearance of the ghost loris. Gilbert’s triumphant call ‘made it!’ when arriving at the black islands even roused a spontaneous applause from the crowd, his enthusiasm clearly resonating with them.

The play uses very simple means to express the events unfolding on the stage, such as actors undulating with cardboard in their hands to convey Gilbert’s struggle to survive after being shipwrecked, or the ghost loris bound to a wooden stick that an actor (in view) dangles over Gilbert’s head. It serves as another source of comedy, drawing soft chuckles from the audience. This kind of humour, however, isn’t everyone’s piece of cake.

The company shiningman produced the play, ‘to celebrate (...) both the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his (...) work On the Origin of Species’. The way in which Creationist ideas are presented throughout the play, certainly does a good job of mocking the belief. They are sold as a mere comfort for troubled people, their only proof born from the imagination of a little girl. However, ridiculing is all the play does. There is no clash of arguments, no debate. This very one-sided handling cannot be seen as a serious exploration of the conflict between evolutionists and creationists.

The play is more effective in telling the personal story of taxidermist Lucius Trickett and his daughter Lucille. The father, riven by grief, desperately hangs onto creationism as a sheet anchor, since only God’s existence promises him a reunion with his dead wife. Lucille is left alone to deal with both her mother’s passing and her dad’s slow but definite descent towards suicide. Since her father’s stories always made her feel better, she reasons that the same would also help him. It’s a child’s naive attempt to make fantasy become reality, to restore her father’s will to live. It’s something a kid should never be forced to do.

It all seems to be working out until the truth comes to light and tragedy unravels. Lucille is crying but her despair doesn’t reach Lucius. He is caught up in his crumbled reality and can only see the betrayal, the goal he craved to reach created and exposed as false by his very daughter. Living Lucille’s fantasy, both unwilling and unable to accept reality, Lucius ends up strangling her as she repeatedly screams out: ‘I am Gilbert! I am Gilbert! I am Gilbert!’

After his distraught departure, she crawls across the floor weeping in agony to reach her father’s arsenic paste and covers her face with it. When Lucius finds her, rigid like his stuffed animals, he finally seems to come to his senses. He gathers the (by now) dead girl up in his arms, and under tears sings the creationist song ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ to her and to himself like a lullaby. Lucius cannot escape. He is a broken man, now faced with the death of both wife and daughter, and can only cling to the conviction that claimed Lucille’s life. It’s his only hope: a reunion in heaven.

Writer Robin French has created a truly absorbing piece. The characters come to life convincingly throughout the performance but it is the agonising last minutes that truly stand out. The sudden turn in the atmosphere and meaning of the play haunts you even after you’ve left the theatre.  Lucius and Lucille transform the stage into a sea of despair, filled to the brink with tragedy. Still, the laughter that earlier on sprung from the delusion still lingers on in the memory.

Till 29 November 2009