THEATRE
By Tom Holloway, Red Stitch Actors
Theatre
Red Stitch Actors Theatre, until Nov 5, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***
Review also published in Herald Sun Arts online on Mon Oct 17, 2016 & later in print. KH
L-R: Caroline Lee (back) , George Lingard, Philip Hayden, Ella Caldwell
On the city
streets on a night of teeming rain, four apparently unrelated, but equally
distressed characters share their stories in an overlapping narrative that
leaves the audience gasping for breath.
In his
new play, Sunshine, Tom Holloway employs a ‘choral’ style that interweaves four,
unnamed characters’ monologues that tell the tale of a damp and doomed night
when a marriage ends, a dead husband is mourned, a man betrays his friend and
two strangers’ lives collide.
Before the
inter-connection of their stories becomes clear, each character embarks on some
solo soul-searching that reveals dark secrets and obsessions, deepest fears,
and alarming thoughts that we hope do not manifest themselves in action.
Directed by Kirsten von
Bibra, the actors (George Lingard, Ella Caldwell, Philip Hayden, Caroline Lee) initially carry their own, narrow, vertical,
fluorescent lights that look like church candles but shed an unholy glow that
heightens the desperation of the characters and the eeriness of the night.
Lingard’s Man 1 starts his night in a
supermarket after which he pursues an unwitting customer along city streets,
while Caldwell’s Woman 1 shifts manically between passionate memories and
frantic tears.
Hayden is Man 2, cheerfully obsessed with a
carload of teenagers whose car stereo blares a Billy Joel tune, while Lee’s Woman
2 reflects on her past while driving
around town in her husband’s enormous, leather-seated car.
Their
words pour out in streams of consciousness, or come in stuttering fits that
interlock with, or echo each other, but never communicate directly with other
characters or create a linear dialogue.
Following
their individual stories is a challenge as they prattle and rant, weep and
laugh and sing, sometimes simultaneously, and this makes the first hour of the
show exhausting, leaving one craving a moment of silence.
The performances are generally strong, particularly from
Lee who finds a tender and poignant beauty in the grieving, older Woman 2.
Lingard creates a dangerous and
volatile presence, Hayden makes his character warm and vulnerable, while Caldwell has a frenetic,
youthful edginess.
Holloway’s
dialogue is not easy to perform, so the actors’ delivery is sometimes awkwardness
and cueing is occasionally loose although these issues may be eliminated over
the season.
The final
scene that replaces the theatrical device of interwoven monologues with a
surprisingly conventional dialogue between two characters is a welcome relief
from the previous intensity and complexity, but it is a disappointingly
predictable ending to the play.
While
Sunshine is a novel, theatrical experience, Holloway’s experiment with language
and narrative is not entirely successful.
By
Kate Herbert
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