“The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

Embodying the dichotomy that typified the Swinging 60s, a time of monumental change which embraced free love as much as violent rebellion, comes the brilliant retelling of the decade’s most iconic horror by playwright, Stephen Sewell.

A humorous yet haunting narrative, told in first person perspective by the phenomenal Helen O’Connor as Susan Atkins, Partying with Manson offers Adelaide Fringe Festival audiences a unique insight into the unbelievably possible story of the infamous wife and murderous disciple of Charles Manson, who, when “looking for something, I needed someone … I found him.”

The temporary carnival tent of La Cascadeur in The Garden of Unearthly Delights steadily fills this rainy Monday, as O’Connor in a fabulous silver-spangled romper appears and announces: “You do a lot of crazy things when you’re eighteen… when I was that age, I killed Sharon Tate.”

Backpeddling almost immediately, she admits, “Well, actually, I was in my twenties by that stage, but it all started there”; the age Atkins first encountered Charles Manson.

Even before as a susceptible fifteen-year-old youth, “mum was dead from brain cancer, my father was just a fucking fuckhead… out on my own”, the performance’s one-woman narrator ironically foreshadows choosing the stage name ‘Sharon’ as her runaway exotic dancer, turned vampiress for Church of Satan founder, Anton LaVey, persona.

“I wasn’t like the other kids – the college kids – I never even finished highschool; I found myself in San Fran’ amongst the Flower People… the irony is, I was never lonelier in my life.”

At this moment in the production, somewhat pitiful, somewhat predictable, the stage set by O’Connor’s retelling seems almost too diminutive to be relatable. Testifying to her “Charlie”, “a sweet, little round shouldered guy… He was an angel, sweet as honey laced with rat poison”, it is achievable at the quartermark to remain cynical, until she, herself, works Manson’s mind control.

Spiralling into stories of the infamously drug fuelled parties, orgasmic romps with celebrities and cooptions of cultural symbolism, it suddenly becomes all too apparent how such vulnerable young women fell under the spell of the quintessential psychopath. Charming, perceptive, sinister, surreptitious, “You see? Charlie was the most beautiful, caring person in the world.”

“He was God” and his message was “the truth”. Better yet, “he saw everything” and, upon an impressionable audience, when you hear, “You are beautiful, you are perfect” for the first time in your goddamned life, it’s intoxicating to believe: “It’s not the drugs, man, it’s the truth”. All of a sudden, everything has a purpose and that is to serve him.

By some kind of trickery, and the occasionally recognisable lulling of her “baby blue eyes” O’Connor reminds us of just how easy it all was. The narcissist doesn’t just begin by assault, but by the time he demands “What Charlie wants, Charlie gets” it’s all too late; the spell is cast.

“An abyss was to open up, on Cielo Drive. I’m sorry for what I did, but you’ve got to understand; that wasn’t me, it was Charlie.” An excuse of an increasing unhinged act is too easily dismissed, before recognition that in a mere thirty-minute interval, we are ourselves drawn into “getting dark”. Suddenly it is understandable how she, Susan, “lay my soul down. I was a member of the Manson Family… and it was so fucking cool.”

“It made sense and no sense”, how such individuals could take upon themselves Manson’s stoney eyed drawl and conduct the final hypnosis on his behalf, but by O’Connor’s performance and Sewell’s pen it’s embarrassingly easy to empathise.

To believe how, “I wasn’t on drugs that night, because Charlie wanted me to remember everything. And, I do”, to reconcile that under the right circumstances, under just the precise measure of control, “Time doesn’t exist, it’s just you and me” and to question, “How the fuck are we going to get out of here?”

A truly brilliant and engrossing performance, one that surprised and sent shockwaves long after the hour had passed, Partying with Manson is perhaps perfectly named and, unquestionably, perfectly executed.