The Dam, June 15, 2000

by Johann McIntyre

La Mama at The Courthouse until July 1, 2000

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The great strength of Kim Durban's production of The Dam, is the performances rather than the text by Johann McIntyre. The actors work wonders with a text that needs some radical editing and rethinking of the narrative, characters and relationships.

Sarah Sutherland plays 12-year old Florence who lives an isolated and fanciful life on a property in Bacchus Marsh. Jenny Lovell is Martha, her agoraphobic mother who, fearing all males are predators, keeps her daughter at home for lessons. Joshua, (Mike Bishop) Florence's father, lives in the cubby house, eating his meals alone.

When Florence begins to venture daily to the dam on the property and to show an interest in Jesse, (Richard Cawthorne) a neighbouring lad, Martha is fraught.

The performers really shine and give the text their best shot. Sutherland finds a lightness and youth in Florence. Lovell brings a great warmth and truth to the role of her mother and Bishop is a strong physical presence in spite of the role of father being underwritten.

The design by Trina Parker is simple and evocative. Director, Kim Durban brings an honesty and truth to the text. One reservation I had was her choice to have Florence running in circles to create a sense of distance and escape.

This is a family barren of love, starved of contact and riddled with dark memories and secret pasts. The problem is that McIntyre keeps hinting at the mystery from the beginning to the point where we no longer care about it. We just want to get the information and get on with it. This is not dramatic tension or suspense. It is just frustrating.

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The play lacks craft. The narrative is confused. It is never clear what, if anything, is in the spooky dam. There is a peculiar cross reference, in Florence's confused stream-of-consciousness monologues, to a black version of Michelangelo's David and a dead baby.

The Dam was McIntyre's first full-length play written in 1996. It might work better in a ruthlessly edited version as a short play. The dialogue is awkward and the poetic self-narration, particularly of Florence, is over-written while the style is incoherent and inconsistent.

Gruesome images of death, worms and incest,. in conjunction with surprise revelations do not create dramatic tension. This script needs intensive reworking.

By Kate Herbert