At Fairfax Studio, Melbourne Arts Centre, until October 28, 1995
Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 21 Oct, for The Melbourne Times
It is magical to watch an actor transform before your eyes and Sarah Cathcart, in her new work Tiger Country, is a veritable chameleon.
On stage, Cathcart is mesmerising as she embodies four women from different eras but the same landscape, moving effortlessly between the roles by a shift in her frame, attitude and accent, without a costume. With Andrea Lemon's seamless direction, she has filled the space with an abstract physicality combined with a continual self-narration.
Trina Parker's stage design has a glorious cream and dusty azure floor pattern of a sundial backed by a geometric hill. Slides of the landscape are projected on a skewed backdrop totally transforming the space with every step in each character's journey.
The design captures the misty heat of the Marilinga, Woomera, Coober Pedy region which is the base of the research for the play. It is matched perfectly by a soundscape which shifts from Doris Day in the 60's to an eerie clicking evoking alien landscapes and capturing the weird isolation of the desert hinterland.
Cathcart portrays with wry humour, the rustic, laconic wit of Iris the roadhouse keeper who confides in a Japanese tourist (she dubs him "Martin") that she was taken by aliens. Barb, the city bird dragged out of her urban environment, suffers the rural life. The most poignant character is Louisa, fresh off the boat from England in 1830, facing a decline into poverty in the desert.
It is, however, the whimsical philosophical observations of the child, Stella, upon the nature of humanity and the universe which are at the heart of the piece: our displacement and existential uncertainty. As the old aboriginal woman says, "I know why the trees are here. I know why I'm here. I just don't know why you're here."
We are all visitors here.
By Kate Herbert
280wds
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