My mum sent me the script for this play when I was in NZ. It had just had a successful season in New York, even though it is written by an Aussie, about an Aussie in the US rebeling against the police state he sees being created in the wake of the 11/9 tragedy that he can look upon from his own apartment. The script is by (damn, forgot the programme, so I won't be able to give you any names) a friend of my Mum who wrote the script to the Salvador Dali play that capped the time that Mum ran La Boite Theatre (have they put anything on that even approaches that play since?).
This is a bit of a spoiler review, so be wary if you want to see the play without anyfore knowledge (note that I'd read the script and still enjoyed it, so I don't think this will really effect you too much)
Anyhoo, I really liked the script and when I found out it was being performed at the Orange Street Studio in Richmond, I had to go. The theatre is very reminisent of La Boite, though smaller. In the round, it seats 150 or so on two levels. On saturday night it had about 100 people in it. The atmosphere was great, really professional, but warm at the same time - people wanted to be there, not just to make money. The theatre seems to employ 'regulars', but is not an ensemble theatre. I am not sure that this is good - what about the other actors out there? but i don't really know enough to comment.
The set was quite minimal - a chair and a desk, some funky hanging thing sfrom the ceilling. That was it. Minimal lighting - just some spots. I don't think these were used to best effect; There were lots of black outs when it would have been just as easy to change the spot from one side of the stage to the other and keep the action going. That's probably my parent's influence coming through though...
All the actors performed superbly, never dropping any of the various accents they had. I don't think I've been impressed with how solid an actor's accents were before. And the aussie ones (actually, I think the lead was an Aussie) were like mine, rather than the crocodile hunter that seems popular with tv execs.
The lead guy did have some annoying facial gymnastics that sometimes detracted from what he was saying - we know he's thinking, you don't have to muck around with your lips and nose and cheeks to convince us of this!
And so onto the play itself. It was great to see it in the flesh - there were a lot of subtlties and nuances that i missed reading the play. The parallel between the paranoia of the sexual allegations and the political allegations and the terrorist allegations and the school implications were nicely highlighted, and then the script brings them all together in a devestating manner; tragic in the sense of an unstoppable fate that can only have one conclusion.
And in fact that tragic necessity leads me to be quite frustrated with the sleeping academic who is the lead character. He is a clever guy, and often in one sentence is talking about how 'people can be thrown in jail for no reason' and the next about printing his anti-american book. In fact he does this too often - it's hard to believe that he can't see what is happening to him a little earlier, this doesn't mean he can stop it, but I think he has to realise this before he can then move on - whcih is the point of his story.
He does have a self-actualization/spiritual rebirth bit, but I feel it's dragged out - he does it, then he doesn't, then he does again! This is largely in the torture scene, of course (very Orwell). I would like it if pretty much all the stuff between him declaring his love for his assailant and the closing scene with Max (the lead's arse kissing Aussie friend) was cut, it just seems to be going over the same stuff again.
The theme of 'wakers sleep' (not wankers, Gibbons in the back) is an important one, that I think should be emphasised more in both the play and the script. This is a theme throught arabic literature/culture as well; I read a book by a prominant Egyptian Author which was all about this, and there was an excellent show about Al Queda etc that talked about how they wanted to 'wake the arabs before it was too late.'
The only part of the script that I think wasn't communicated well to the audience (and it's very minor) was a scene where, at the Gugenheim, the lead's wife storms in screaming 'they've taken my husband' over and over. After her speil she is applauded as if it was a performance piece. This is a really nice, and horrifying, scene, but was cut a bit short and I am not sure the audience picked up on what was going on.
Some nice bits were the way that Max's accent starts to shift to american through his final, arse kissing speach., and the ambiguity of the final 'terrorist bombing' was superb. What a way to finish the story!
All in all it was a really good show, the sort of theatre that, for me, is the reason that theatre should still exist. And it really calls for us to Wake, even though we won't....
(Finally, about my actual night, there was a girl who had come on her own to see the show for her thesis about political communication through plays, who I had a chat with at interval. Unfortunately while we were chatting the guy next to me butted in and started talking, Grrr. Then, throughout the second half he kept turning to me to see what my reaction was to the play! Very, very annoying. In the end I didn't even get to say goodbye to the girl he was prattling so much)
