Written by
Emma Gibson
Directed by
Karla Conway
Presented by
The Street and Canberra Youth Theatre
The Street
Theatre, Canberra 3 – 12 April 2014
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
This
third play by Emma Gibson and presented at
The Street Theatre following Love Cupboard (2010) and Widowbird (2012), is a potent
demonstration of her growing confidence and ability to present complex themes
in an accessible and absorbing way.
Drawing inspiration
from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little
Mermaid and The Red Shoes, Gibson
uses just one character in Johnny
Castellano is Mine to trace the surreal and compelling journey of
self-absorbed teenager, Alice, who falls desperately in love with the school
dreamboat, Johnny Castellano. Alice’s
love is reciprocated by Castellano, but the relationship is forbidden by her
father. The devastated Alice’s response when she discovers Castellano making love
with her best friend Gretchen sets her on a path to an inexorably horrific
climax. Throughout the play Gibson tantalises her audience by deliberately obscuring time and place as the story unfolds, exploring issues of racial intolerance, self-harm, and obsession to trace the aftermath of Alice’s destructive and powerful love.
Central to
the success of the play is a tour-de-force performance of mesmerising intensity
by Alison Plevey. As Alice, Plevey’s performance takes place in an abstract environment
of shiny black surfaces, lit by stark white fluorescent tubes. On
stage for the entire performance, Plevey constantly moves around, over and
through Samantha Pickering’s impressive setting, quickly establishing contact
with her audience and holding it until the very end when she quietly disappears
into the darkness. Despite being required to execute physically demanding
moves, even performing upside down at one point, Plevey delivers her lines throughout
with admirable clarity and purpose.
Karla Conway’s
direction of the play is inspired. Cleverly taking advantage of Plevey’s prodigious
dance skills to allude to Alice’s fluctuating mood swings, Conway creates a
disturbing rhythm to the performance through the use of constant black-outs
which differentiate the various sequences. The effect is both unnerving and
fascinating.
This production
of Johnny Castellano is Mine is an
outstanding demonstration of the value of the Street Theatre’s Hive program,
curated by Caroline Stacey, in
identifying and nurturing young emerging Canberra creatives , and an auspicious
first collaboration between The Street Theatre and Canberra Youth Theatre.
This review appears in Australian Arts Review www.artsreview.com.au
