THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

 

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and Dreamworks Film. Adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel. Directed by Chris Baldock. Mockingbird Theatre. Belconnen Arts Centre. To August 22.

I have a huge blind spot when it  comes to murder mysteries and who-dunnits. So as usual I could not for the life of me figure out the guilty party in this absorbing modern murder mystery until it was revealed at the end. No matter. The fun is often in the journey and in Chris Baldock’s tightly directed show there’s plenty of the right kind of tension.

At its centre is an uncertain narrator. Rachel Watson (Morgan Heath-Williams) has  the bloodstained mark of a blow on her forehead and seems rather too fond of drinking to be a reliable witness to anything. Her ex husband has gone off with another woman and they now have a baby. She’s lost her job. She watches what happens on trains and has taken to speculation about the lives of some passengers.

Morgan HeathWilliams (Rachel)

Heath-Williams captures Rachel’s wild eyed and unreliable narrative well. She fantasises about a happy couple she keeps seeing on the train. At least she thinks Scott (Timothy Cusack) and Megan (Susie Todd) are happy. Then there is a murder.

Ex-husband Tom (Robert Reardon) is no help and his new wife Anna (Sabrina Fu) is understandably very wary. Therapist Kamal Abdic (Ankush Singh Khanchi) is no use to a traumatised Rachel either. And when the law arrives in the laid back form of D.I. Gaskill (Paul Sweeney) Rachel looks even more isolated.

Paul Sweeney (D.I.Gaskill)

This is all happening on a cunningly designed set by Baldock where the audience is surrounded by the play with a pit at the centre (a grave?) and projections high on the walls of things like trains rushing by.

A good evening for an audience who enjoys a well sustained and co-ordinated murder mystery done with some imagination and style.

 

Alanna Maclean