That Eye, the Sky, adapted by Richard Roxborough from Tim Winton’s novel 17 OCt 1994

 

That Eye, the Sky, Adapted & Directed by Richard Roxborough from by Tim Winton’s novel

Playhouse October 13 – 15, 1994

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on 13 October 1994

This review was published in the Melbourne Times after 17 October 1994. KH

 

There is a simple, poignant beauty in the writing of Tim Winton which Richard Roxborough has captured in his sparkling stage adaptation of the award-winning novel, That Eye, the Sky. To coin a style, this is Magic Australianism. There are visions, hallucinations, poetic language and broad Australian colloquialisms stirred into the one sweet tragedy.

 

Ort (David Wenham) is the slightly simple ("I don't get some things."), pre-pubescent son of Sam and Alice Flack, a pair of latter-day hippies. His father is rendered comatose after a car accident and Ort, who was in a coma with meningitis as a little boy, is the one person with a common experience. Ort alone has visions of the crockery spinning and glittering like jewels, of a little cloud over the house which arrived on father's return and of the sky as an eye watching over them.

 

Ort, with his recalcitrant 16-year-old sister, Teguin (Susan Prior) and devoted mother Alice (Rachel Szalay) assisted by a stranger, Henry Warburton, (Richard Roxborough) who arrives unannounced and sent by God, to help nurse Sam back to life.

 

This production is a truthful translation of Winton to stage. Roxborough's astounding directing debut has created a stunning ensemble piece with exceptional acting, strong physicality and fine, unobtrusive choreography by Kim Walker. There are delicately rendered and intimate moments, seamless and inventive scene transformations, a thrilling introduction of live sound effects and music by multi-skilled actors, an extraordinary use of stage space and wonderfully appropriate distressed-fabric costumes.

 

A few f mentionable and magic moments were the transformation of six chairs into a gum-tree forest, Dad's chilling car crash, the "coming in" of the feathery cloud and a delightful cameo from Steve Rogers as Errol the rooster.

 

Wenham magically transforms himself into the fragile child Ort, doing the most credible kid acting I've seen in an age. Szalay is a warm and heart-wrenching as Mum and Prior is a fabulously physical Teguin. Roxborough himself is rich and dangerous as the alien Warburton.

 

The whole ensemble is charming, electric and committed to the piece, the style, the narrative and the play as a great theatrical event. The group beat out percussive rhythms by running on the floor or clanging on the scaffold set. There is a sense of the whole company being inside each other's roles as they breath in rhythm with each character's internal state, pulsing out an emotional landscape.