Theatre / The Almighty Sometimes, by Kendall Feaver, directed by Lachlan Houen. At The Q, Queanbeyan, until November 22. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

The Almighty Sometimes is a long play (and perhaps could have used some pruning), but it’s an absorbing one. 

Anna (Winsome Ogilvie) was diagnosed with a mental illness in childhood. But despite many visits to psychiatrist Vivienne ( Steph Roberts), both diagnosis and treatment feel unclear. Her widowed mother Renee (Elaine Noon) caries a huge ongoing burden because of this. Her sympathetic boyfriend Oliver (Robert Kjellgren) has his own struggles.

The set (designer Caitlin Baker) takes advantage of the large Q stage to show long banners depicting Anna’s writings, the one thing that has kept her going since she was a child. In the quieter moments of the play they make a disturbing rustling sound that underpins the disturbance of Anna’s existence.

There is clear, strong playing from all four actors of a script that offers no sure solutions to Anna’s problems. Roberts makes the psychiatrist very approachable, but reluctant to give easy answers.

Kjellgren is warm and youthfully understanding as Oliver (despite the actor having to contend with a recent injury that has left him on crutches and in a moon boot). Noon captures Renee’s difficulties and brisk strengths.

And as Anna, Ogilvie towers as the bright difficult child who has become a young adult dealing with a condition that no one seems to have an answer to.

The whole thing is poetic and human and all the better for a playwright who is not looking for easy or sentimental solutions to the dilemmas of the characters.

Off the Ledge, straight into sharp, funny play