Hour of the Wolf REVIEW 20 Oct 2023 ***

THEATRE

Written by Keziah Warner, by Malthouse Theatre

At Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse until 3 Dec 2023

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: *** (3)

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 28 Oct 2023. KH

Jack Green & Kevin Hofbauer_photo Pia Johnson

 The premise of Hour of the Wolf is that the small town of Hope Hill is visited once a year for an hour between 3 and 4 am by a wolfwoman who visits horrors upon members of the town – perhaps only on those who deserve it?

                                                                                                                  

During this “immersive” performance, audience members can choose their own adventure. It’s a fascinating, potentially theatrically compelling idea that is not wholly successful; form is the focus at the expense of content and the concept has not quite translated into a dramatic whole.

 

Audience members are funnelled into a scarily cramped, holding corridor, provided with headphones and some cursory instructions over the earphones (Earlier instructions in the foyer over the PA were inaudible). A woman’s voice narrates into our ears that she visits this town once a year. The Wolf?

 

We are ushered into a walled off space that represent a specific location. Other groups may start elsewhere, but my journey through the story starts in a karaoke bar where three different conversations take place. We are then told, over the earphones, to follow a character, or simply move to another room through a door. I move to the scene of a car crash, a convenience store, a couple‘s bedroom, a filmset in a church, a hospital waiting room and, finally, to a small gymnasium where a woman appears to have killed a man whose body has disappeared. End.

 

Other audience members have a different beginning, middle and ending. Some wander off to explore rooms to sticky-beak in the crashed car or peer into gym lockers, scour shelves in the convenience store or peer at photos on the walls of the bedroom. You could choose to miss the entire narrative by just exploring the marvellously detailed, elaborate set design. In fact, Anna Cordingley’s set is probably the star of this production.

 

We are voyeurs on the private conversations of various townspeople, and this provides a frisson of impending drama or danger and a feeling of being where we should not be.

 

Hour of the Wolf has a lot of promise and has had a lot of time, money and personnel thrown at it. It involves 11 actors (I saw only 10), multiple story lines and a very complex set and physical structure built inside the Merlyn Theatre.

 

Unfortunately, the technology let it down at times because the actors were inaudible through the headphones, so I took mine off most of the time and may have missed something crucial.

 

There are problems with the plotting, narrative and dialogue. I kept expecting there to be a greater sense of menace in the space and genuine danger, but it was all so downplayed, that at no point did I feel anyone was in any real danger and there was little heightened drama in each scene, despite the nervy urgency of characters.

 

There is no pay-off at the end. The story just peters out and we are left with a sense that we missed something or that there is no real danger after all.

 

The Wolf was missing from our journey through these spaces. We eventually realise that she is the voice of the woman in our ears through headphones. We want more of her and perhaps need to have her give us more details of her story and her reasons for being in Hope Hill, of all places. Or perhaps she needs to be a character on stage at some point. I assume that the Wolf narrator is Natasha Herbert, who I’d love to see or hear more on stage. Perhaps I missed an entire, significant scene that featured the wolfwoman.

 

There is mention of “offerings” – that seem to be bread rolls – to the Wolf, but the origins of this practice, the history of the Wolf’s visitations, her menaces, the disappearances or deaths she seems to have been responsible for, are never clearly described for the audience so that we understand the town’s attitude.

 

The fact that all but one of the characters is young is odd because there is clearly history to this Wolf. Where are the older or old townspeople who have experienced more of this history and established the practices to avert the danger?

 

Hour of the Wolf is a valiant, but ultimately unsuccessful piece of immersive theatre that favours style over content.

 

by Kate Herbert

 

 

CAST

Lucy Ansell

Jack Green

Natasha Herbert

Kevin Hofbauer

Keegan Joyce

Brooke Lee

Emily Milledge

Christina O’Neill

Eva Rees

Karl Richmond

Katherine Tonkin

 

CREATIVE TEAM

WRITER – Keziah Warner

DIRECTOR – Matthew Lutton

INTERACTIVE DRAMATURG / David Harris

SET DESIGNER / Anna Cordingley

COSTUME DESIGNER / Zoë Rouse

ASSOCIATE SET DESIGNER /Karine Larché

LIGHTING DESIGNER /Amelia Lever-Davidson

COMPOSITION & SOUND DESIGNER / Jethro Woodward