Cactus REVIEW 17 Aug 2023 ***1/2

 THEATRE

Written by Madelaine Nunn

Live Stream from La Mama Courthouse on Thurs 17 Aug 2023

Live season runs until 27 Aug, 2023 then on La Mama On Screen (dates TBC)

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***1/2

VCE Play List

This review is published only on this blog. KH

Cactus__L-R Fran Sweeney-Nash, Georgia Heath-Darren Gill

Cactus, by Madelaine Nunn, is an audacious, episodic play that peers into the secret lives of two teenage girls and unmasks their various obsessions, passions, tribulations, transgressions and ambitions.

 

The play, directed deftly by Katie Cawthorne, begins with a graphic monologue by Abbie, played by Georgia Heath, who is shocked to find her first period has arrived in an alarming, grotesque and vivid flood.

 

What follows is a series of over 20 short, chronological scenes, with Abbie and her bestie, PB, played by Fran Sweeney-Nash who also appears in cameos as various other characters from the girls’ lives.

 

Nunn’s well-observed and candid dialogue captures the unexpurgated conversations between these two teenagers who are facing the end of their school years and an unknown but exciting future. They share their fantasies about boys and imagine having sex for the first time. Of course, when it does happen, it is not all that they expected, but neither is going to tell the truth about that, are they?

  

They gab about teachers, schoolwork, assessments, other girls, parties and drinking. They plan pranks, including egg-bombing a teacher’s car, and share hopes, dreams and secrets.  Their behaviour shifts between the childish and the adult, while their conversations are a hotch-potch of naive opinions, misinformation, absurd assumptions generalisations – often based on social media posts – and intermittently mature views. PB trots out hilarious snippets of cod psychology and proffers simplistic health remedies for Abbie's condition – "Take fish oil!" They seem to be joined at the hip, as teenage girlfriends can be.

 

Cactus__L-R Georgia Heath- image Darren Gill

When Abbie’s period pain becomes unbearable, her life changes; she faces a major and ongoing gynaecological problem that will alter the rest of her life.

 

Heath is credible as Abbie, effectively portraying her fantasies and fears as she struggles to accept and negotiate her bumpy path to womanhood. In contrast, Sweeney-Nash’s ebullient performance embodies the optimism of a young woman who has yet to confront trauma or pain and fails to understand Abbie’s sudden distance after her diagnosis and treatment.

 

The stepped, artificial turf-covered set design (Nunn & Cawthorne) provides multiple levels and locations for the many scenes, and Kris Chainey’s evocative lighting establishes a variety of atmospheres and frames the action.

 

Cactus is on the VCE Drama Studies playlist, so 16-18-year-olds will be an ideal audience for this work. It is challenging and exposing, and parents and teachers would be advised to see it. You may suspect that there are secrets you will never know about your teens.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

Cast

Abbie - Georgia Heath (she/her)

PB - Fran Sweeney-Nash (they/them)

 

Written by Madelaine Nunn (she/her)

Directed by Katie Cawthorne (she/her)

Lighting Design by Kris Chainey (he/him)

Sound Design by Rachel ‘Stoz’ Stone (all)

Production and Stage Manager Sian Halloran

Costume Design &

Original set design by Madelaine Nunn & Katie Cawthorne

Associate Set Design by Angelica Rush (she/her)

Produced by Madelaine Nunn