The Eisteddfod written by Lally Katz, by Stuck Pig Squealing
Tower Theatre, CUB Malthouse, July 19 to 29, 2007
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on July 19, 2007
The performers (Luke Mullins, Katherine Tonkin) and direction (Chris Kohn) are the features of The Eisteddfod. The script is credited to Lally Katz but her program note suggests significant contribution by cast and director that could explain the episodic, often jumbled nature of scenes.
The Eisteddfod borrows from absurdist theatre writers such as Ionesco and Beckett. The narrative occurs in a non-realistic place where the world of the imagination is the only reality.
Since the death of their parents eleven years earlier in a freak pruning accident, Abolone (Luke Mullins) and Gerture (Katherine Tonkin) live a totally isolated life inside one room. Their days revolve around each playing roles in the other’s bizarre fantasies. They are children in adult bodies.
Tonkin is sympathetic as Gerture, the under-confident sister living in the shadow of her vibrant, successful brother who was mother’s favourite. She languishes in unrequited love for her imaginary lover, Ian, whose relentlessly cruel treatment of her is the creation of her brother who portrays Ian in their role-play. To avoid Ian/Abolone’s heartlessness, Gerture escapes into a catatonic state where she enacts her banal fantasy of being a teacher in an imaginary school.
In turn, Abolone enlists Gerture to play Lady Macbeth to his Macbeth in an imaginary upcoming Eisteddfod competition. The first prize is a one-way ticket to Moscow. Between childish games and sexual play, re-enactments of mum and dad’s fraught marriage and their own arguments, Abolone and Gerture rehearse Macbeth with hilariously awful Scottish accents.
However they try to escape each other through their separate fantasies, their lives and imaginations are permanently entangled.
Kohn and the actors create an almost musical rhythm for the characters, orchestrating a dynamic ebb and flow of energy between scenes. Mullins is compelling as he shifts effortlessly from arrogance to despair or playfulness to cruelty. Tonkin captures both the innocence and guilty pleasure of Gerture in her imaginative play.
Adam Gardnir’s (OK) design, lit evocatively by Richard Vabre, is a small and claustrophobic platform with cunningly hidden shelves, recesses and curtains. Jethro Woodward’s soundscape completes the surreal environment.
The play is entertaining but, unlike the great absurdists, it lacks any penetration of the psychological depths of these characters or investigation of the philosophical concepts of imagination, despair, isolation or dependence.
By Kate Herbert
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