Reviewed by Helen Musa
Picture shows Hannah Wood (Jamie) and Ethan Gibson (John)
In “The Underground Ark,” Canberra
Set in a world destroyed by global warming, the play sees an
elite group of human beings sent underground to survive and reproduce their kind
according to a set of rules and regulations.
The playwright toys with eugenics, the concept of a master
race and the dangers of utopianism, tempered with a healthy dose of satire and dramatic
conflict as the idealists, the pragmatists and humanists battle it out. In the
end, Hoogendoorn plumps for humanity and hybrid vigour over social engineering.
Just when you thought the plot was wound up so tightly that
he’d never be able to extricate the characters, the playwright abruptly
introduces a surprise ending that sees the characters gazing into the middle
distance as they imagine a more or less optimistic future.
With a brand new play, it is dangerous to confuse text with
production, but the characters seem to be well-delineated and the script stylishly
written, though in the earlier part perhaps a bit too speechy.
The actors do service to their roles, with a particularly
fine performance by Ethan Gibson as the fanatical young medical student John.
But I was troubled by the lack of emotional ebb and flow in
the directing that saw the ending very nearly fall flat. I am fairly sure this
is not the script and that closer vocal work with the actors would have yielded
the emotional power needed to convey Hoogendoorn’s challenging ideas.
July 23, 2012 (This review was first published in
