For its debut production, director Lachlan Houen’s new company, Off the Ledge Theatre, has chosen Australian playwright Kendall Feaver’s work The Almighty Sometimes.

Already staged around Australia, the play, a sharp, funny paean to mental health in modern society, now appears in the Canberra region for the first time as part of The Q’s “Q the Locals” program. 

Winner of the Judges’ Award at the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting – the largest competition of its kind in Europe – and the Victorian and NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Feaver’s play tackles mental illness with what Houen calls, “some of the most biting humour I’ve ever read in a play”.

With the company’s avowed aim of tackling challenging and authentic narratives that “leave an impression long after the stage goes dark”, Houen says, Feaver’s play seemed like the perfect place for Off the Ledge to begin.

Winsome Ogilvie, who plays the central character Anna, is originally from Jindabyne and moved to Canberra to complete a degree in art history and curatorship at the ANU, where she acted with Houen in When the Rain Stops Falling. 

She believes that although acting and the visual arts are very different, curatorial study helped her learn how to interpret creative works – a skill that now shapes her approach to character and script.

Describing The Almighty Sometimes as “not sweeping drama but very human”, Ogilvie explains that Anna is an 18-year-old living with her single mum Renee (played by Elaine Noon) and has been medicated for mental illness for at least seven years.

“She’s lost, like a lot of 18-year-olds,” Ogilvie says.

On the brink of adulthood, she rediscovers stories she wrote as a child and decides she wants to become a writer – but fears her medication will dull her creativity.

Her decision to stop taking it sets off a turbulent chain of events affecting her relationships with her mother, her boyfriend Oliver (Robert Kjellgren), and her psychiatrist Vivienne (Steph Roberts), who is not pleased with her decision.

“But at 18, Anna is independent. The shows reveals the up and the downside of what happens,” Ogilvie says.

“It’s incredibly fast-paced, with most scenes played between two characters, Anna and her boyfriend, Anna and her and her mum and Anna and her psychiatrist.

“The dialogue jumps between conversations, often very complex, about mental illness and questions about the legitimacy of her original diagnosis.

“The play is quite accessible, very human and her witty character projects a lot of dark humour, even when the conversation gets very serious, making it even more accessible for the audience.”

While much of the play follows Anna’s struggle to write, it also explores the fragility of ambition and self-belief under the weight of doubt.

Ogilvie suggests that Anna’s illness is never clearly defined – possibly depression with bipolar symptoms – but what matters is how open-ended the story feels. 

“The great thing about The Almighty Sometimes is that there’s not a clear and definite ending,” she says. 

“That’s fitting, because mental illness itself is something people can struggle to talk about.”

The Almighty Sometimes, The Q, Queanbeyan, November 19-22.