Liberty Equality Fraternity - Review

Liberty Equality Fraternity

by Geoffrey Atherden

Ensemble Theatre

Director: Shannon Murphy

Designer: Michael Hankin

Lighting / AV Designer: Verity Hampson

Sound / AV Designer: Stephen Toulmin

Cast 

Helmut Bakaitas

Caroline Brazier

Andrew Ryan 

http://ensemble.com.au

Reviewed by Benjamin Oxley 

Power. Privacy. Profiling. 

Without humour, the subject of interrogation fills us with fear, our every move tracked on close circuit video and trace audio. Here, Atherden's work brings it into brittle focus: building frustration between the sexes, his trainee secret operative versus her libertarian housewife. Gen Y Nerd asking questions of a nominal activist. 

According to a UK Independent from 2005, "Suspects can be held for four hours, which can be increased to 24 hours on application to a magistrate. After that period, suspects are charged or released. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation can hold suspects for up to 14 days under a warrant issued by a federal judge". It can happen. It does and will continue to be a factor in our lives.

Strip away the situation, and you have the playwright's mastery of comic structure. Perhaps the greatest achievement is that our interest is maintained for the length of a movie. Without ads, or breaks. Carefully placed interludes help us to digest the drama. Subtle lighting and sound design create clever relief from the awkward encounter.

Two central characters have several conversations at once, arriving at different conclusions. For us in the audience, we can see, or should I say hear the 'accident' approaching. How much equality is there in the tacit reading of the two protagonists of each other? Even music tells us their difference. 

Orlagh (Caroline Brazier) holds this interview room duel together with careful changes of emotion and reflection. Her timing secures a remarkable platform for 'Archi', played by Andrew Ryan. He handles the difficult moments well, but gives way to Brazier in the climaxes. It is a battle of wits, binary logic against bourgeois brains. Bland v bright. 

'Dr Voldemort' is the more acceptable face of covert operations. Helmut Bakaitas measures his lines and actions as he deftly pours coffee. It is a study in calculated bureaucracy. The strength of the final sequence is the swift direction to the endgame: how to resolve the tension?

The final ploy is at once hilarious and chilling. I really enjoyed this intimate piece. On reflection, I'm not sure I will "like" much on Facebook again. You will be very cautious using the internet after seeing this play. 

Great Falls - Review

" Great Falls" by Lee Blessing, directed by Anna Crawford, is playing at the Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli from the 2nd of February.

This two character play of 90 minutes with no interval is an intense experience. There was brief plot required semi nudity and also, some shocking revelations revealed sexual content. I sat amidst a mostly middle-aged audience on a sparkler of a Sydney summer afternoon. The question for me when I watch emotionally challenging and disquieting plays is always, 'Did I care about these characters? Did I care about what happened to them when I peered briefly into their world from my comfortable seat?' The answer in this case is yes. I was transported by them.

Bitch, played by Erica Lovell, was very much the 'headphones on, block all attempts of warmth and connections' older teen, who was very trying on one's patience. Monkey-Man, Bitch's ex-stepfather played by Christopher Stollery, is initially a man looking for connection with his birth family in his revisit to his past, as well as connection with his now ex-family whom he betrayed.

Both characters need redemption, to confess and find a way to move on to the next chapter in their lives. This play is a road journey and there is no going back the same way. The journey is circular and is thus resolved for both characters with hope for the future.

We are immersed into this road trip through excellent staging brought to us by Verity Hampson's lighting and AV design, by Stephen Toulmin's sound design as well as the flexible and inventive set by Michael Hankin. The seamless transition from from car to motel, to National Park was what enabled me to suspend my reality and connect with the difficult and confronting dilemmas that both characters faced.

This play is not easy to sit with but Anna Crawford's direction put me in an emotional space where I could safely see, without harsh judgement, how complex life can be when reaction to personal histories dictate current decisions.

By Marie Su

The Secret River - Review

Reviewed by Regina Su

The Secret River, by Kate Grenville, is one of those stories that really hits your inner core. To most Australians, it’s a familiar tale- of white land possession in the colonial period of Australia and how these events has negative effects and consequences for both the Indigenous custodians and white settlers. The story follows a newly freed convict family who take some ‘vacant’ Australian bush and the hardships which follow a people flung into an alien land. Their experience is then paralleled to the Indigenous peoples on whose land they annexed- a very familiar story to all Australians who know of the Indigenous experience. In fact, some people may be put off by this text; for fear that it will be a broken record on Indigenous oppression and suffering. While The Secret River does contain these elements and this underlying message, the story is not at all a guilt trip. As with any Kate Grenville text, the craftsmanship is in the storytelling and the beautiful weaving of the narrative blanket. The text itself has won numerous prestigious awards, the Commonwealth Prize for Literature, and the NSW Premier’s Prize, to name a couple. It was shortlisted for Miles Franklin Award and the Man Booker Prize. Grenville has captured an age-old story and resurrected it with her beautiful words and made it relevant to a current society.

This year, until the 9th of February, the Sydney Theatre Company presents a stage adaptation of Grenville’s The Secret River. In terms of production elements, the performance is beautiful, even magical. By recreating the iconic location, (the Hawkesbury River,) on stage, they transport us back to a land before our known time and they achieve so using only a communal campfire, simple mis en scene and eucalyptus branches. By employing self-conscious theatre techniques, the audience is alerted to the construction of the play and therefore the relevance of the social justice commentary; for example, sounds of the water trickling are made by a small boy down stage right, and the orchestra sits on the stage. These act as a subtle reminder to us that we are not to be immersed in the theatrics or the tale itself, but to remember the themes and message that this play acts as a vehicle for. The lighting and subtle uses of computer projections are excellent and stand as a testament to the absolute professional quality of the Sydney Theatre Company’s stage team. The directing was exceptional, tying up loose ends and detailing the play to the enth degree and the acting was so powerful, so intense. This production is not to be missed, even though we know the story, even though with hindsight we know the ending will be tragic. What we do not know is just how crafty Grenville’s storytelling is and how perfect and simple a Sydney Theatre Company production can be.

For more information, visit: http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/what's-on/productions/2013/the-secret-river.aspx

The Brothers Size

The Brothers Size is playing at the SBW Stables Theatre until 16 April. It is written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, if you haven't heard of this writer before, well I think you will be hearing a lot more of him in the future. He has won a load of awards since he graduated from the Yale School of Drama's playwriting program in 2007.  This play is superbly written and is an Australian premier production.
The actual theme of this play makes it sound like it is going to be a bit depressing but there is quite a bit of comedy, music and just the sheer brilliance of it, when you leave the theatre you just go, wow that was fantastic!