In 2020, just days before the world went into lockdown, the Adelaide Festival staged Romeo Castellucci’s production of Mozart’s Requiem from the previous year’s Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. It was a prescient moment.

One particular scene greeted with oohs and aahs by the audience involved a woman who was swallowed up by her mattress, and Mario Banushi’s Goodbye, Lindita includes similar coups de théâtre.

The first of these is the appearance of the deceased titular character in a chest of drawers that opens up in the middle of a sparse open-plan living space. Created by production designer Sotiris Melanos, it is home to a multi-generational family that features in the work.

Goodbye, Lindita at the 2024 Adelaide Festival. Photo © Russell Millard

There is no narrative per se and no clue as to what happened to Lindita (Alexandra Hasani). Instead, the audience is plunged headlong into the family’s grief and mourning.

How the audience will respond to this is likely to depend on how much time has passed since they attended someone’s funeral.

Seven years after this writer’s most recent loss, Goodbye, Lindita is still harrowing.

That said, it is a remarkable piece of theatre and justly...