Goodstock

Stories about cancer are difficult. Purely fictional works might worry about realism and representation, but Goodstock, an autobiographical show, sets itself up for a bigger, harsher problem.

People get sick. Some go out of their way to avoid it, perhaps inadvertently taking steps that are as painful as that which they seek to elude or defeat. Some survive, some don't. That's the truth, but that truth is not a story. Stories make sense, which cancer never does. So how do you tell a story, even a true story, about cancer? Beyond its indescribable unfairness, the fear and anger it inspires, and the painful details, what is there to say about it?

Olivia Hirst carries the BRCA1 gene mutation, which dramatically increases the likelihood she will eventually develop breast cancer. In Goodstock, Hirst tells her own story, and that of the women in her family, particularly her cancer-surviving grandmother (portrayed by Illona Linthwaite), alternating these narratives with a perky explanation of BRCA1 made simple (and, often, terrifying).

The educational portions of the play are undoubtedly its best because, paradoxically, they allow the cast to abandon reality: gruesome statistics and surgical after-effects are explained with a cheerful, unexpected but never distasteful good humour, with wonderfully incongruous musical accompaniment from one-woman supporting cast and human drawing board Rianna Dearden.

We can never make sense of cancer, and Goodstock does not pretend otherwise. Yet it is an insightful examination of how we might make sense of our response to it.