Footprints in Water by Matt Cameron, Aug 3, 1997

Footprints in Water by Matt Cameron

at La Mama until July 20, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Aug 2, 1997

Matt Cameron's award-wining play, Footprints in Water, highlights prejudices and breaks social taboos by creating characters who are vile representations of all the worst 'isms' in our culture: sexism, misogyny, racism, fundamentalism, dogmatism, monotheism and a streak of homophobia.

Christian fanaticism struggles with promiscuity, Buddhist philosophy is set against the Bible and the Foreigners against the Local. As Noel the shoemaker-preacher says, 'Repression is what separates us from beasts.

The narrative involves six fraught characters who all live in a village which protects itself from outsiders. Noel's (Aiden Fennessy) church is atop the hill, closer to God. He is building a boat to escape the plague God will send. He pedals his bike and his religious pedantry down to the village daily, avoiding the brothel.

His assistant Errol (Jim Russell) is slow and is having sex with Lena, (Elise McCredie) the wife of Gunter, the brothel-keeper (Jerome Pride). The other two character are Edie, (Annie Finsterer) a virginal 'whore" and 'the Sobbing Woman' (Christen O'Leary) who is trying to empty the river. The ensemble is excellent.

Footprints is riddled with disturbing images, stark and horrible moments of abuse. Jerome Pride's brothel-keeper is, frankly, terrifying in his restrained perversion and violence.

Cameron's characters and dialogue are colourful and Peter Houghton's direction vigorous and inventive. Houghton heightens the festering darkness of the narrative with stark lighting. He keeps actors on stage throughout, lurking in corners and behind a forest of upright planks designed by Paul Jackson.

Houghton has introduced another deeply evocative layer in a live vocal soundscape that includes whistling, chanting, singing and dog's barking. It heightens the sense of impending doom and makes the space dangerous.

Cameron has explored an emotional depth that is less evident in his previous work. His characters are steeped in their own pain and prejudices. They do each other damage and they each have a wicked secret to guard.

Although it deals with dark issues of the human psyche, it is a very funny piece with a broad streak of Cameron's characteristic absurdity. On occasion he undercuts dialogue with gags but these only occasionally interrupt the flow.

Characters are manipulated like the chess pieces on Noel's board. They cannot escape their fates. They are like Jungian archetypes. What to infer from all this is not quite clear in the end but it a powerful and intense piece of theatre.

KATE HERBERT