THEATRE
by Emily Goddard
at fortyfivedownstairs, until Feb 25, 2018
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***1/2
Review also published in Herald Sun in print on Tues Feb 20, 2018 & online at Arts/Lifestyle. KH
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| This Is Eden-Emily Goddard-photo Justin Batchelor |
If you've ever talked cheerfully
about having convict ancestors, your attitude may change after seeing This Is
Eden, Emily Goddard's play depicting the horrific conditions of incarcerated
female convicts at The Cascades Female Factory in Hobart Town in 1839.
In Susie Dee’s moving and
often funny production, Goddard, initially playing a gauche but well-meaning tour
guide, gently introduces her audience to the history of the Factory and the
women who were transported from England for trivial crimes.
This companionable
engagement with the audience shifts dramatically when Goddard reappears as
filth-covered, desperate young convict, Mary Ford, who languishes in isolation
and silence in a tiny, dank cell (design, Romanie Harper).
Goddard is a skilful chameleon,
transforming physically and vocally from naive tour guide to tortured victim
fighting to retain her humanity and identity.
As the convict, Mary, Goddard
delivers vicious parodies of her tormentors, using the black comic style of
Bouffon, the grim, mediaeval, French clown that attacked Church and State
through brutal imitation.
The first target of Mary’s
vitriol is an upper class, settler's wife who used Mary as a servant – or
should we say slave?
Goddard's second venomous
parody is a pompous, fire-and-brimstone Reverend, who threatens the girls with hellfire
for their petty sins, and her final target is the blustering Factory superintendent
who justifies his inexcusable actions with, ‘I'm just following orders’.
The less gruelling scenes
with the tour guide relieve the pressure of the punishing scenes of Mary in her
darkened cell, but the dynamic range of the show, including the shifts between
Mary and the tour guide, are sometimes awkward.
This is Eden is on the
VCE syllabus, and audiences of secondary school students will be engaged and challenged
not only by Goddard's skilful performance, but also by the confronting details
about the Cascades Factory and our dark history.
By
Kate Herbert
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