Is It Delirium or Is it Just Human Nature: Burkovskiy and Khamatova Are Brilliant Either Way

The pace of this play with two actors and a fish hits the ground running and doesn’t let up for the entire 80 minutes. Well, I guess a fish can’t run because fish and people are different species.  The fish is lucky; lucky to be a different sort of animal because humans are the worst kind of animal. I wonder if fish can find humour and joy in difficult times?  Can their minds escape the horrors? Questions you may ask yourself while experiencing Delirium.

Delirium starts with a bang, well two bangs, the literal and the figurative one. The acting is bold and the accents are strong, but after a few minutes intonation becomes familiar and easy to follow. The phenomenally skilled actors Andrey Burkovskiy and Chulpan Khamatova must be exhausted after each show.  The physicality and intensity of Delirium is a lot.  A lot, in a good way, because I think that is what it takes to make a devastating mirror held to our faces somehow be entertaining and humorous, instead of completely soul crushing.

Humans are not fragile.  I mean we can be, but we mostly are not.  We deal with the horrors our kind create. In this case, namely, war.  We have ways of making big things little.  We have a sort of survival delirium. We argue about little things instead of facing the big issues. Delirium manages to weave together the fragility of the human mind, the malleability of the human mind, and the  rigidity of the human mind and drape it across a backdrop of war, relationships, love, hatred, and the incorrigible, impermeable human spirit. 

Arlekin Players’ Delirium is at Calderwood Pavilion through July 2nd.  If you need a way to process what it means to be human (I’d say in this day and age, but it seems that history repeats itself and so in any day and age) then go see Delirium.  If you are not afraid of the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, the relatable, the obscure, and tapping deep down into some lighthearted spaces through it all, then don’t brush this one off.  The acting is worth witnessing as is the statement Igor Golyak’s adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s work makes on every level.  Tickets can be purchased here.