“This one is… challenging,” says director Corey McMahon. He’s in rehearsals for Theatre Republic’s next production, The Almighty Sometimes.

Challenges have been the name of Theatre Republic’s game since the company’s beginnings in 2018 – they talked about masculinity in crisis in Lines, examined cycles of violence in Angus Cerini’s brutal The Bleeding Tree, tackled grief and delusion in Emily Steel’s How Not to Make it in America and tore apart the subtly racist undertones of the progressive left in The Garden.

Kendall Feaver’s The Almighty Sometimes sees the company enter similarly tricky terrain, examining the experience of living with complex mental illness. The play follows Anna, who has recently turned eighteen and has decided to stop taking medication for a mental illness that she was diagnosed with as a child. Her search for purity and equilibrium causes a schism in the fragile relationships she has with her therapist, her new boyfriend and her mother.

“This play is quite slippery,” says Corey. “Each relationship walks this very delicate line between care and control. Living with, or alongside, illness is complex… and this play asks some knotty questions about what it means to care for someone and to love them. The uncertainty, the ‘sometimes’, that comes with worrying about someone. The emotional cost of loving someone.

“There’s no right and wrong in Feaver’s play. It’s beautifully drawn but incredibly complex. Everyone is trying. They’re doing their best in the play. But nothing is ever cut and dry… it’s quite a remarkable piece of writing in that respect. A real achievement. But for a play to carry all of that feeling… it’s a delicate thing.”

The play asks a lot of its actors and audience, asking them to ride the waves of Anna’s recovery. It moves quickly, sparkling with wit while being gently imbued with a sense of sadness and danger – Anna, and everyone in her life, are part of a very delicate web that slowly unravels throughout the course of the play. It leaps off the page, blending crushing reality with Anna’s flights of creative daring and fancy. It’s little wonder it has won awards across the globe.

“I can’t believe a play this good hasn’t been performed here yet,” says Corey, “there are some plays that are lightning in a bottle and this is one of them: it’s beautifully crafted and very intelligent, but still incredibly empathetic and human. It’s sharp and clearly drawn, but full of shades of grey.

“It’s an incredibly rich text … there’s so much to chew on, so much to root for, so much drama that walks along a knife-edge.”

The ‘sometimes’ that sits at the centre of The Almighty Sometimes ripples through every aspect of the work – the sympathies of the audience shift constantly; the characters push these too far.  The play is fascinatingly unwieldy, a consistent theme running through Corey’s work at Theatre Republic. When asked why he’s continually drawn to such difficult stories, he laughs.

“Because that’s what makes the best theatre! The best theatre starts debates, asks big questions, gets its hands dirty. It asks questions without easy answers. It grapples with something. It’s fun and full of life and joy. It’s not smug or self-serving, its politics are never linear. It’s alive. It’s a conversation.

“I think at Theatre Republic we’ve always wanted to start conversations between artists and audiences – and make world class theatre with South Australian artists and Australian writers. Anyone who has lived with or supported someone through any illness will know that every day is filled with impossible decisions. This play so beautifully captures people doing their best, failing and trying again anyway… because that’s what you do when you love someone.

“It’s not easy… loving someone… or making theatre, for that matter. But it’s worth it. To tell stories like this one.”

The Adelaide premiere season is presented by Theatre Republic in association with Adelaide Festival Centre.

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