The Floating World

I reviewed The Floating World at Griffin Theatre over at Australian Stage. You can check out what I thought here. (Spoilers: the show is spectacular.)

Other Desert Cities

Other Desert Cities runs at Melbourne Theatre Company from 2 March – 17 April. By Jon Robin Baitz, directed by Sam Strong.

As readers of my blog will probably be aware, I do the majority of my theatre reviewing in Sydney. However, I recently found myself in Melbourne for academic purposes, and so I thought I’d check out some of what’s going on down there. And so I went along to Other Desert Cities, Sam Strong’s (late of Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company) directorial debut in his new position as artistic associate at Melbourne Theatre Company.

This is a very fine script. This is not exactly a secret –it was nominated for a Pulitzer, so this is hardly a groundbreaking observation. Other Desert Cities is the story of a family in crisis. Brooke (Sacha Horler) and Trip (Ian Meadows), the children of Republican senator Lyman Wyeth (John Gaden) and his hardass wife Polly Wyeth (Robyn Nevin) have come home to Palm Springs for the holidays. Brooke has shocking news to tell her family: she has written a tell-all memoir about the life and death of her older brother Henry, who rebelled against his parents and who Lyman and Polly turned away when he needed help the most. This memoir, if published, will rock the Wyeth family to the core. But, as we learn over the course of the play, there is far more to the story of Henry than Brooke knows. The truth – if there is one – is more complicated than her perspective.

One of the most common things that writers get told is to show, not tell. I completely understand why this is useful advice for writers starting out; however, this play is a testament to the power of storytelling (emphasis on the telling) and the fact that sometimes action is more powerful in retrospect. Truth becomes splintered and multiplied in Other Desert Cities, refracted through all the perspectives of the characters. Everyone has their own version of the action, different pieces of the puzzle, different narratives that they have lived by, stories they have told.

The reason writers get told to show, not tell, is so they don’t fall into the trap of having characters talking about the interesting stuff that has happened rather than allowing the audience to see what actually happened. Other Desert Cities has almost a story within a story: it is the story of the disparate reactions of the Wyeth family to the disparate versions of the Henry story. The script is strong enough to break the show-don’t-tell rule – we are definitely more invested in the how-people-react story rather than the what-actually-happened story. However, the danger with this kind of narrative is that it can become sedentary – a bunch of people talking without anything actually seeming to happen. I measured the places where the narrative flagged by the woman sitting next to me: when things weren’t happening, psychologically speaking, for the Wyeth family, she would promptly fall asleep. This is not to say that the show was in any way boring, because it wasn’t. However, she did provide a remarkably accurate barometer as to when interesting tensions were being exploited as opposed to when characters were simply sparring or bantering. Sam Strong’s direction was taut enough that she didn’t fall asleep often. The scenes she drifted off in were largely those involving Trip, and I was sad for her, because I really enjoyed Ian Meadows’ work in this production. His character is caught in the middle of the battle between the Wyeth parents and Brooke, and so he becomes somewhat extraneous to it, but he had some great moments. (I would totally watch that trashy reality courtroom show he works on. So hard. I love the way that, in a play which deals so much with ideas of truth, his daily work was on reality TV, the fakest truth there is. It was so perfect.)

One of the cleverest things about this show was the set. As soon as I walked in and saw that glass box on the stage, my mind went straight to the Simon Stone place, but I feel like the glass was symbolic in a different way here. The glass reflects the truth as we see it, but we can also see through it to something else. Transparency and truth were one of the major preoccupations of the play. In the first act, characters can pass through the transparent space of the house, skirting it but not addressing it. In the second act, when truths are revealed, they are contained within it, transparency becoming a prison, truth doing the opposite of setting them free. This was cleverly mirrored by the swimming pool at the front of the stage: it too reflected back an image, but if you tried to penetrate too deep, you could drown (just like Henry).

I feel like Other Desert Cities could easily have become static and dull, but in the deft hands of Sam Strong, it is a deeply engaging and moving piece of theatre. The cast is magnificent – I have already mentioned the work of Ian Meadows, but I would be remiss not to note the wonderful work of Sacha Horler and Robyn Nevin also. John Gaden tended a little towards the melodramatic in certain moments on occasion with his portrayal of Lyman, but his performance was nonetheless wonderful and nuanced, as was Sue Jones’ performance as Polly’s recovering alcoholic sister. Don’t let the woman who fell asleep next to me put you off: this is a great show. It engages cleverly with ideas of story, truth, and performativity. It is funny without letting the humour overtake the story at its heart: humour, in this show, is just another way the truth is deflected.

Between Two Waves

I went along to Between Two Waves at Griffin Theatre and reviewed it over at Australian Stage - you can read my thoughts here. Catch this one before the world ends.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

I reviewed Sydney Theatre Company's production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses for Australian Stage - you can read my review here.

The Boys

I reviewed Griffin Theatre Company's Sydney Festival show The Boys for Australian Stage - you can read the review here.

And No More Shall We Part

And No More Shall We Part runs until 3 September at the SBW Stables, Kings Cross. By Tom Holloway, directed by Sam Strong.

I am a student of romance novels. A PhD student. This means that I fill my days reading again and again (and again and again) about people falling in love, about commitment, about romance, about people devoting their lives to each other. This is my trade.

So trust me when I say that And No More Shall We Part is the most romantic play I have ever seen. It is also the most upsetting play I have ever seen.

And No More Shall We Part is the story of Pam (Linda Cropper) and Don (Russell Kiefel), a couple who have been married for a long time. Pam has a terminal illness, and she and Don need to figure out how to end their life together. She is determined to die with dignity. He is desperate not to lose the love of his life, and is finding it impossible to say goodbye to her.

This play is exquisite. I don't even know where to begin to talk about it. For the second half of it, my primary focus was not actually sobbing out loud. The love story aspect of the play is played down in the publicity, but while it's not a love story in the traditional sense, the devotion of Pam and Don to each other, the way it's shown that they would do anything for each other, is the most achingly romantic thing I have ever seen. And No More Shall We Part is heartbreaking, heartrending, beautiful, deeply, deeply affecting. It is visceral, raw - I have never been to theatre this intense, this emotive.

And it's not because this play tugs on the heartstrings. There are no cheap shots in Tom Holloway's script. This play is not an emotional rollercoaster. There is no rise and fall, no unnecessary grandiosity, no false hope. Instead, it is simply quiet tragedy, domestic, everyday. Writing, directing and acting have combined to their best effect in this play, creating theatre that transcends story to become nearly reality.

The one small criticism I could make of this play is that the stichomythia (short lines bantered back and forth) was sometimes handled too glibly by the actors - occasionally it didn't seem as though the actors were listening to what the other was saying. However, this problem was largely confined to the opening scenes of the play. The last scenes - where Pam decides to die, and Don, however unwilling, decides to help her do it - are absolutely heartbreaking. And just when you think it can't get any sadder... the end of the play... oh my God. There is no way I can express in the confines of this review how terribly, terrifyingly sad And No More Shall We Part is. Tom Holloway's writing, Sam Strong's direction, Linda Cropper and Russell Kiefel's acting - all these combine to make what is one of the most deeply moving pieces of theatre I have ever seen.

I cannot recommend this play highly enough. I was foolish enough not take tissues - seriously, listen to the warning Griffin have on their website. This play is exquisitely sad, deeply moving, and wonderful theatre.


PS: I was lucky enough to go along to the Inside The Rehearsal Room event Griffin held for this play a couple of months ago, and I really feel like it heightened my appreciation of the play. Props to Griffin for having such cool events - I highly recommend them!

PPS: You may have noticed that I'm writing a fair bit for Australian Stage now. I'll link to all my reviews there over here, as well as writing new reviews just for the Back Seat.

Speaking In Tongues

Speaking In Tongues runs until 19 March at the SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. By Andrew Bovell, directed by Sam Strong.

Speaking In Tongues is the closest to a perfect script I have ever encountered.

Bovell apparently amalgamated two separate scripts to make Speaking In Tongues - which is sort of obvious when you think about it, but has to be one of the happiest theatrical accidents ever. The thing that makes Speaking In Tongues so special is the way it's layered, the stories interwoven, intertwined, tangled. I'm struggling to think of a piece that's more cleverly structured, and the only one that comes close is When The Rain Stops Falling. Surprise, surprise, it's also by Andrew Bovell.

In the first act, we meet two couples - Leon and Sonja (Christopher Stollery and Lucy Bell) and Pete and Jane (Andy Rodoreda and Caroline Craig). All four go out drinking. Leon meets Jane. Pete meets Sonja. One couple cheats. One couple backs away. And from this one evening, the stone dropped in the limpid pool, the ripples spread wider and wider and wider.

Griffin Theatre's production of this play is simply outstanding. This script is brilliant but it's also VERY difficult for the actors, and I could not fault any of them. Not even a little bit, not even at all. Caroline Craig as Sarah in the second act was especially good, but seriously, if I was going to pick a flaw? I'd have to sit here for a really long time.

This play contains what has to be one of the most annoying theatrical devices ever - two people speaking at the same time, saying exactly the same thing. Hell, even Oscar Wilde didn't quite pull that one of - the bit in The Importance of Being Earnest where Cecily and Gwendolen simultaneously tell Jack and Algernon that their Christian names are an insuperable barrier and then Algernon and Jack simultaneously reply that they're going to be christened that afternoon doesn't really work even though it's meant to be a joke, and although I've seen a lot (like, a LOT) of productions of Earnest, I've never seen actors quite pull that moment off. If Oscar can't do, I would generally maintain that no one can...

*

...but they get it JUST RIGHT in Speaking In Tongues, and there is a LOT more than two lines spoken at the same time.

Maybe the reason that this device works in this play is because of the way just about everything seems to parallel everything else. Leon and Jane's experience mirrors Sonja and Pete's. The lives of these two couples are so intertwined that it seems only sensible that they would be saying the same things. It might seem contrived that Sonja happens to run into Jane the next night in a bar, Jane sitting and looking for Sonja's husband - but when you consider later how tangled the storyline of the first act is with the story of the second act, where Valerie the psychologist treats Sarah who might be sleeping with John and who saw Neil whose shoes Pete has; how Jane saw Nick throwing shoes that belonged to Valerie, a crime which is investigated by Leon... everything is coincidence in this world, because everything is connected.

*

Because of this, there is an intense claustrophobia in Speaking In Tongues, making Griffin's tiny diamond stage the perfect place to stage it. Every character is trapped - trapped in their own skins, in their own lives - but the minute someone does something to change it (like sleeping with someone they're not married to) the ramifications are instant. There is no personal change without changing everything. It's the dramatic articulation of the The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock - 'do I dare disturb the universe?'

*

It makes perfect sense to have the same actors playing multiple characters, because everything is connected and mirrored and paralleled (is that a word?) The only character who escapes is Valerie, and her solution is very... final. The door that opens that she runs through leads to a wilderness both lush and terrifying. It smacks a little of Picnic At Hanging Rock, the disappearance into the landscape, being consumed by it. This door - which obviously leads to death - is the only escape from the ripple effect of decisions within the universe of the play. (Sidebar: my sister and I have been wondering for ages whether there was a door at the back of the theatre there. We were convinced there wasn't. Seeing this play, we finally found out there was.)

*

I cannot speak highly enough of this production - the script, the acting, the direction, the set, the tech-y stuff... everything was 100% outstanding. It's hard to imagine a way this production could be better. I, for one, can't fathom it.

And if you haven't seen it, you're not going to be able to - it closes today and it's totally sold out. This tells us a few things: 1) I need to start writing reviews earlier; 2) I'm not the only one who thinks this show is excellent; and 3) you really, REALLY missed out.