Theatre: Joey the Mechanical Boy

The Nest Ensemble
Written and devised by Margi Brown Ash and Leah Mercer
Performed by Margi Brown Ash and Phillip Miolin
Directed by Leah Mercer
Set and costume designer Tessa Darcey
Lighting designer Karen Cook
Sound designer Joe Lui

Until November 22

Margi Brown Ash and Phillip Miolin (pic Leigh Brennan)


In their award-winning Eve (2012), the writer/performer Margi Brown Ash and writer/director Leah Mercer told the sad story of the now-forgotten Australian writer Eve Langley. The biographical details, though, were just a jumping-off point for their exploration of Eve’s rapture, and for Ash’s remarkable performance.
Their new play, Joey: the Mechanical Boy, also deals with real events and people. They may be obscure now, but, in the American frenzy for all things Freudian after WWII, the autistic boy Joey, his so-called “refrigerator mother” and the psychotherapist Dr Bruno Bettelheim, were big news.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian