Nihilistic Optimism on Trampolines review | Theatre Works

It was on a dreary November night that we took our seats for Nihilistic Optimism on Trampolines, a loose reimagining of the origin of Frankenstein. Rather than setting it during the year without a summer in Switzerland, when Mary Shelley conceived her famous tale, this production places us in a contemporary trampoline play centre, Trampoline World. Here, the employees are each tasked by their supervisor with writing a ghost story.

The characters are named after people who spent time with Mary at the villa, so we have our Byron and Percy and Claire and John all present. Gabrielle Ward is committed as the protagonist, displaying her gradual obsession with completing the story and uncovering the more unsettling impulses behind creation. Eleanor Golding also leaves a mark as Byron, a senior supervisor at Trampoline World. He isn’t particularly integral or complex, but Golding brings an authenticity to him that elevates his scenes and makes him interesting to watch.

Writer and director Kasey Barratt draws on both Frankenstein and Mary Shelley’s personal journals for this production, but the shifts in language style are awkward and disrupt the flow. It is an extremely aspiring task to take on, but walking out of the show, I was left questioning Barratt’s vision. Was there really any necessity in transplanting that fateful evening of 1816 to Trampoline World? The links between the historical figures and their modern-day counterparts are tenuous at best. Her ambition is clear, but the connections and purpose get tangled in the chaos.

Adding a live band might have seemed like a fun choice, and while the music itself is well-suited to this existential dread, the ongoing microphone and sound issues made it nearly impossible to hear the dialogue once the band started playing. For a show packed with long conversations, various relationships, and a plot that bridges past and present, this made it difficult to engage with it, and grasp the deeper motivations and emotions of the characters when we couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Tom Vulcan’s lighting design set the moody, gothic undertones of Mary Shelley’s time with deep red and pink lights, casting dramatic shadows across the actors’ faces and silhouettes against the walls and props. It elicits a visual tension that mirrors the story’s darker themes, even when the dialogue is hard to catch. 

Unfortunately the set design by Josh McNeill falls more on the drab side, which doesn't offer anything of appeal, nor does it resemble the inside of a trampoline play centre, apart from two rebounder trampolines at the front of the stage. His costumes fare slightly better, with a uniform top, but worn differently by each worker to suit their personality, and/or mismatched with the character's own style underneath.

There’s a lot going on in Nihilistic Optimism on Trampolines, and disappointingly, much of it doesn’t come together well, with plot threads, arcs, and tonal shifts feeling disconnected. And so, on that same dreary November night, we left Trampoline World still pondering the ambition behind the work, but ultimately weighed down by its uneven execution.

SHOW DETAILS

Venue: Theatre Works, 14 Acland St, St. Kilda
Season: until 6 December | Tues - Sat 7:30pm
Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets: $38 Full | $31 Concession
Bookings: Theatre Works

Image credit: Sian Quinn