 |
| Arran McKenna (Leon) - Steph Roberts (Sonja) - Jess Waterhouse (Jane)- Robbie Haltiner (Pete) |
Written by
Andrew Bovell – Directed by Cate Clelland
Performed by
Arran McKenna, Steph Roberts, Robbie Haltiner, Jess Waterhouse.
Presented by
Free-Rain Theatre, ACT Hub 25th October to 4th November,
2023.
Performance on 27th November, 2023, reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.
 |
| Arran (Leon) - Steph Roberts (Sonja) |
Andrew
Bovell’s intriguing AWGIE Award-winning play is given a terrific production at the
ACT Hub.
The decision
of director, Dr Cate Clelland, to stage this play on a minimalist setting of multi-coloured
cubes, focussed full attention on Bovell’s remarkable script, leaving the
actors nowhere to hide. Not that this cast needed anywhere to hide, for each of
the four actors delivered accomplished, engaging performances.
Bovell’s
play examines the effects of infidelity and betrayal within marriage. It
follows two couples, Leon and Sonja, played by Arran McKenna and Steph Roberts,
and Pete and Jane, played by Robbie Haltiner and Jess Waterhouse who
inadvertently exchange partners.
Dissatisfied
with their marriages, each decides to explore infidelity, and the play opens
with each of the four tentatively engaging with their new partners. For this scene Bovell has the two sets of partners
speaking the same lines together and simultaneously, but with each of the
actors re-acting differently to what it being said.
It’s a
fascinating ploy, and watching the skill with which actors exploit the
possibilities offered by the script to bring unique individual nuance and
responses to the lines, both with words and body language, is a mesmerising and
enthralling experience, particularly in the intimacy of the ACT hub.
 |
| Jess Waterhouse (Valerie) - Robbie Haltiner (Neil) - Steph Roberts (Sarah) |
As the play opens
out, the audience learns of individual connections between the couples, with
the actors interpreting a variety of different characters in the second act, whose lives have been unwittingly impacted by
the actions of the original quartet. Among then a woman stranded on a dark road
who accepts a lift from Leon, who becomes a murder suspect when the woman
disappears.
As these
strands are explored it says much for the skill of the actors, and the clarity
of Clelland’s direction, that there is no confusion in following the threads, nor
is there any frustration from Bovell’s tantalising decision to leave the
various threads unexplained at the end of the play, leaving the audience to
reach its own conclusions.
While the
clever use of various versions of “The Windmills of Your Mind” threaded through
the play, worked well in hinting at the psychological implications of the play,
it was a pity that a better solution wasn’t devised to avoid destroying the
hard-won mood and breaking audience concentration watching the actors reset the
cubes in half-light between each scene.
That
reservation apart, this is an excellent production of an important play which
will fascinate anyone interested in aspects of the human condition. Try not to
miss it.
Images by Janelle McMenamin
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au
