Gross und Klein (Sydney Theatre Company)

Fictional Response by Jacob Dunham

I heard you… as you talked and talked and talked at the bottom of the staircase, your tortured whimsy getting to the edge of the railing before disappearing in smoke.

Come closer to me, God.
Give me the words to expose
the creep which madness staggers
across the darkness.
This manly God
I’ve designated to the page
and whose soul, I hope, will follow.

We watch the comings and going as if they were true microcosms of one another: as if each person who tripped on the small rise in the carpet represented another, as if kindness was a specific angle of an upturned lip. And you made comment, for you always make comment just as I, always, hear you. You make comment about the way it all happened and how it relates to you and I pray to the windows and doors that you might stop.

What is that? What are we?
Where are we trekking,
with our sleighs, toward?

Like Rik Mayall and his aweful brilliance, you labeled the inane as “amazing” and mimic their candour as if it elevates you to their sanity.

Indeed, what sanity awaits us in god’s shadow?
Come closer to me. Come closer still.
Don’t come so close…
You must be insane. You must truly be insane.

It seems best for both of us if we just don’t talk. Can’t you see, dear woman draining of my love, that I’m trying to write?

Gross Und Klein by Botho Strauss (English text by Martin Crimp/Directed by Benedict Andrews) plays at Sydney Theatre until December 23 . It features Cate Blanchett, Lynette Curran, Anita Hegh, Belinda McClory, Josh McConville, Robert Menzies, Katrina Milosevic, Yalin Ozucelik, Richard Piper, Richard Pyros, Sophie Ross, Chris Ryan, Christopher Stollery, Martin Vaughan.