at La Mama, Dec 7 to 17, 2000
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Fathers is a short
play written by Louis Milutinovic during the NATO bombing in 1999, his first
year in Australia. It has striking moments, moving themes and some slick
dialogue. This is a fine piece on which La Mama ends its year.
It is an abstract play that takes the relationships between
fathers and sons into the afterlife. We realise this only after the initial
scenes. Milan Petrovich, (John Flaus) an ageing father, searches the Serbian
battlefields for his lost son, Ivan. (Gary Abrahams)
What he finds is three men all called Ivan Petrovich, all
soldiers, all related to him, all dead on the battlefield. He too is dead.
There are echoes of Sartre's No Exit which has a group of
mismatched and angry people in a room together. Milutinovic's men are also
confused about their fate. Slowly their relationships are revealed. Deda (Paul
Hooper) is actually Milan's grandfather who died young. The Communist partisan
(Scott Gooding) is Deda's son and Milan's uncle.
"It is hard being Serbian - but beautiful," quips
the grandfather. Milutinovic writes potent dialogue and an intriguing narrative
which resonates with the anguish of a war-torn and troubled nation.
The play could have been longer. It is good leaving an
audience wanting more. The only problem was the introduction, in the final
minutes, of the women searching for their men. It was melodramatic and
unnecessary for the drama.
Harry's Christmas was written by the extraordinary English
actor/writer/director, Steven Berkoff. This production, directed by Wendy
Joseph, is performed by Kiran D'Costa.
D'Costa simply does not have the acting skill to tackle this
role. It is too complex and the intricacies of the text and character are
buried in this production.
Berkoff is a versatile and charismatic actor who wrote his
own material to highlight his exceptional physical and vocal skill. This script
for one actor playing Harry, is a beautifully written study of a disturbed and
lonely man as he faces the emotional black hole of Christmas.
Harry tilts from faked joy and faint hope to despair when he
can find no old girlfriend to join him for a drink. He is a prime example of the
dysfunctional urban suicidal male. Harry is not a role for an amateur actor.
By Kate Herbert
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