May 8th
2015. It’s the day after the election and like many, I am utterly shocked (and
in denial) about the result. How to make sense of it? Mental, an autobiographical monologue by artist and activist the vacuum cleaner (James Leadbitter)
told with the aid of his psychiatric notes and a police file on him proves the
perfect antidote to post-election blues.
From the
beginning, Mental feels clandestine
and therefore magnetic. Near the railway arches between Deansgate and Oxford
Road Station, in the incessant, torrential clichéd Manchester rain, I’m met by
a girl in a purple Contact Theatre jumper. ‘Are you here for Mental? Can you see the man with a green
hoodie on? Cross-over and he’ll lead you to the vacuum cleaner.’ I mistrust her
sweetness and slightness, but I’m compelled to follow her instructions.
The young,
hooded male leads me up some stairs, away from the downpours to a residential,
unassuming block. The audience comprising twelve of us are taken up in the
lifts. We are led into a flat and offered carrot cake. I decline.
In the
living room we sit on cushions and stare nervously at the centre-piece, a
double mattress. A mournful, male disembodied voice with a Lancashire brogue
gives himself a pep-talk ‘You can do this. You have to do this. They’ve paid
for tickets. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.’ And suddenly, a few minutes in,
Leadbitter surfaces from under the duvet, unexpectedly, confronting us with a
shy gaze while a record player blasts the soulful Wake Up Everybody by Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes.
Leadbitter
mourns the election result and asks us if we’re ok. The atmosphere is already
painfully familiar without this intimating rhetorical question. His direct method draws us in, and he
proceeds to tell his us his story creating a relaxed atmosphere by the lo-fi
accompaniments of record player, overhead projector, lamp and FUCK OFF mug (a
desecrated Starbucks logo), which entertainingly forms part of his story.
Doing away
with acts or breaks, Leadbitter structures his piece with the aid of his
overhead projector, 1999-2003, 2003-2009, 2009-present. This overall structure
seems to be more in line with the episodic nature of silent film, the
novel-like style of The Royal Tenenbaums
or the wonderfully slapdash approach of American
Splendor, weaving jazz, comic, film and theatre together in a decidedly
post-modern piece.
In a
tattered, navy turtle-neck dress, Leadbitter beguiles us with his stranger than
fiction tale. Appropriating the language of the state (psychiatric and police)
on him, makes him reclaim his own story. Leadbitter’s gentle persona makes you
forget that the story that he is telling us is quite potent in its scandal. His
dead-pan, comic and at times blunt delivery softens the shock of the brutality
of the state – whether mediated by psychiatry or by the police.
The two
strands of his story are woven intricately (and one could say interchangeably?)
– one is his history of mental illness, the other his history of activism. On
the one hand he is labelled with ‘borderline personality disorder’ by
psychiatrists, and by the police as a ‘domestic extremist’. These labels smack
of the Orwellian nightmare, and reflect the language used by politicians post
9/11. One could levy these labels at the present elected party in the UK is my
immediate, recurring thought during the performance.
His
cartoonish escapades (the lawsuit Starbucks made against him, protesting against
Eon, getting dressed up as a clown as a group of activists) could descend into
bathos, were it not for the darker, truly shocking accounts of police brutality
he weaves into his story. In 2009, he was protesting peacefully in London, and
on that fateful day, Ian Tomlinson was beaten by a police officer whose brutal
blows contributed to his death. Leadbitter visibly shakes as he tells us about
being kettled by the police, unable to leave the scene of police criminality.
Alternating
violence with humour, Leadbitter pulls out a Borderline Personality Disorder for Dummies guide returning us to a
more light-hearted place. The relief is only temporary as the almost forgotten
carrot cake ends up being a tragic part of his story – the last meal he wanted
before attempting (almost successfully) to kill himself. This denouement is raw
and deeply felt by the audience – part sick joke, part genius, part indigestion
and part immense sadness.
The only
slightly troublesome note arrives when Leadbitter breaks to ask for a hug from
a member of staff. This criticism could seem utterly heartless, but despite the
clear pain in his story, the request for the hug seems gratuitous or as if it’s
part of the performance itself, and therefore slightly contrived.
Leadbitter’s
great strength is that the pain doesn’t stay just pain. It is mediated into
Art. With the backdrop of another disco treat
Love is the Message, Leadbitter tells us about Ship
of Fools, an irreverent and inventive take on his own pain, an artwork
where he sectioned himself in his own flat, for 28 days as an imitation of a
Section 2 under the Mental Health Act 1983. He invited artists and friends to
spend time with him, and was able to convince doctors not to section him. In
parodying the psychiatric system of containment for his own purposes, he is
able to both make an important comment on and take back his personal freedom. His
perspicacity in not just surviving pain but making it indivisible from his
process as artist astounds.
The act of
mere existence, of difference is affront to the establishment. In some very
small, but not negligible way, the very act of being here, listening to his
story, feels like protest. Mental
couldn’t feel more relevant as Art and protest in these Citizen Four times. In telling us his story in a particular way, he
is able to remind us that the personal is the political.
Despite the myriad revelations, the
end result doesn’t feel like an over-wraught confessional. Leadbitter’s piece
defies straightforward labels. Part documentary, part DJ, art performance,
testimonial. He is a technicolour Charlie Chaplin, regaling us with his
ludicrous (but strangely true) Hannah Barbera misadventures that are peppered
with huge amounts of personal pain but somehow don’t feel too burdensome.
As I walk
away from the performance, going to meet my sister for post-election drowning
of sorrows, I pass the homeless protesters camping out in tents outside Central
Library. The landscape feels alien; like the worst dystopia you could imagine,
except it isn’t. It’s real. Leadbitter’s activism, protest, art and life feel
more relevant than ever.
By Eli
Regan
