Miracles by Tobsha
Learner
Playbox until May 2,
1998
Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around April 28, 1998
We have no Aesop but
we live in a time that cries out for contemporary fables. We must leave it to
our novelists, filmmakers and playwrights. Such is the style of Tobsha
Learner's latest play, Miracles.
Learner draws her characters with broad comic strokes as
stereotypes. Trinity Supermarket, a Flemington family business, is stocked with
as colourful a range of people as the goods going out of date on its shelves.
Ida (Heather Bolton) is a brassy shop-owner whose husband Clive (Greg Stone) is
a dodgy small-time crook and gambler. Sparks (Sophie Lee) is a tacky,
loud-mouthed checkout chick.
The feature act is the virtuously named Immaculata (Laura
Lattuada). She has worked the cash register for 20 years without complaint
about her oppressive Italian father, Irish priest, Aussie bosses or Catholic
God who seems to have abandoned her.
This is Immaculata's journey from excruciatingly shy,
illiterate cripple to star status as a miracle worker. She has a visitation
from God (or Mary) who appears to her in a cash register and gives her healing
powers. Lattuada plays her with great warmth and humour without stepping into
the dangerous territory of mocking a 'cripple'.
Kate Cherry, who was responsible for the recent stylish
production of Woman at the Window for MTC, has directed Miracles with a deft
hand. Scenes and characters move swiftly, the comedy is broad and clown-like
and, in the second half when Immaculata's sainthood becomes martyrdom, the
shift of gear is effective.
Learner is a good gag writer; consider SNAG and Mistress.
She makes the most of the jokes in Miracles. There is little subtlety in the
dialogue or narrative. This is addressed in the second half to some extent when
the dialogue necessarily becomes more introspective as Immaculata faces
stardom, her demons and incarceration. .
With new work there is always the need for editing or
re-writing during rehearsal. But with the writer not only out of the rehearsal
room, but out of the country (Learner lives in in LA), it may be impossible.
The Torres Strait Islander narrator (Maryanne Sam) who
observes Immaculata's journey and draws attention to the relationship between
indigenous spirituality and Christian faith, seems extraneous. The sub- plot
about the policeman and his junkie sister, serves the narrative little.
The play could be a fast, funny and perhaps poignant
one-acter in its next life but it is an entertaining piece simply exploring a
woman's journey of self discovery.
KATE HERBERT
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