Jurassica by Dan Giovannoni. Directed by Bridget Balodis.
Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre and Critical Stages. The Q, Queanbeyan Performing
Arts Centre. Sept 19 – 22 at 8pm. Matinee Sat Sept 22 at 2pm.
Jurassica is a gentle working over of the familiar territory
of post war migration and its dislocations. The memories of Ralph (Joe
Petruzzi) are the initial focal point of this solidly directed and sparely
designed piece. With his wife Sara (Caroline Lee) Ralph comes to Australia from
Italy in the great waves of post ww11 migration.
The repercussions of all of this for their son Ichilis
(Jordan Fraser-Tremble), his wife Penny (Devon Lang Wilton) and grandson Luca
(Edward Orton) are examined. Set against these are the much more recent
memories of interpreter Kaja (Olga Makeeva) a refugee from Belgrade in the
1990s.
Ralph’s name might have been anglicised but his memories of
Italy as he approaches the end of his life are vivid. Ichilis struggles with an
identity that straddles two cultures and Luca seems to have moved even further
away, his relationship with his grandfather most vivid when he was a little
boy.
The play swings between the present and the past, centring
increasingly on Ralph’s past, his dead wife Sara and his hopes for the future
in his son and grandson. Kara’s raw modern take on migration and cultural
difference meshes in the hospital ward with Luca’s seeming indifference as he
buries his head in a smart phone.
The cast handle all this with elegance and focus. Tantalising fragments of story surface. How did Lee’s very self contained Sara
‘bully’ Lang Wilton’s independent and good humoured Penny into producing a
child? The story is hinted at in passing but only briefly. And Penny and Fraser-Trumble’s somewhat
immature Ichillis do not appear to have actually gone though a marriage
ceremony. Old norms have been challenged but there’s also acceptance of the
new.
Meanwhile Orton’s Luca has become a twitchy young bloke
coping with his sex life via apps although how he became that is never made
quite clear. No wonder he and Makeeva’s no nonsense translator Kaja find it
hard to co-ordinate over helping his grandfather in the hospital.
Petruzzi as the patriarch makes the strong and feeling
centre of all of this. A dinosaur from the Jurassic perhaps but one who is trying
for understanding. Much has perhaps moved on since The Shifting Heart.
Alanna Maclean