Meet me at Dawn REVIEW 15 Feb 2024 ***

 THEATRE

Written by Zinnie Harris

By Melbourne Theatre Company

At  Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne, until 16 March 2024

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 24 Feb, 2024. KH

L-R Sheridan Harbridge, Jing-Xuan Chan_photoPiaJohnson

In Meet Me at Dawn, two women wash up, half-drowned and disoriented, on the deserted shore of an unknown and remote location. They are partners who were on a recreational boat trip when their craft capsized forcing them to scramble desperately to apparent safety.

 

This two-hander, written by Scottish playwright, Zinnie Harris and directed by Kary Maudlin, charts a single day after their seafaring accident. As the sensible but anxious and troubled Robyn, Jing-Xuan Chan acts as narrator, speaking directly to the audience, establishing details of their adventurous, albeit foolhardy boat trip, the accident and their arrival, marooned, on the blue shore.

 

Sheridan Harbridge plays Robyn’s brittle and acerbic partner, Helen, who appears to have been injured in the boating accident but seems no worse for wear. She is feisty, frosty, witty and certain they will be found. Robyn, however, is more pessimistic and wrestles with the facts of their foolhardy boating trip and her doubts that they will be found safe and sound.

 

Meet Me at Dawn is the dramatic collision of delicate love story and philosophical mystery. What begins as a seemingly simple story of love and survival, slowly evolves into a mystery in which reality converges with reverie or illusion.

 

The truth of their predicament is fairly clear from quite early in the play, but there’ll be no spoilers here – just in case you are slow to grasp their reality. The pair struggles to understand what happened, how they survived, why the strange woman in the distance ignores them, whether they can really see a distant, inhabited shore and when they will be rescued.

 

This is an engaging, often funny and ultimately touching 75-minute piece that gently explores love and grief – with a nod to Orpheus and Eurydice.

 By Kate Herbert

Cast

Sheridan Harbridge- Helen

Jing-Xuan Chan - Robyn

Creative Team

Katy Maudlin - Director

Daniel Nixon -Composer & Sound Designer

Amelia Lever-Davidson -Lighting Designer

Romanie Harper -Set & Costume Designer 

Geraldine Cook-Dafner -Voice & Text Coach

Intimacy Coordinator- Isabella Vdiveloo