THEATRE
Written by José Rivera, by Red Stitch Theatre
At Red Stitch until 24 Nov 2024
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***** (5)
This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly, 3MBS on Sat 2 Nov 2024. KH
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| Lucy Ansell, Caroline Lee - Your Name Means Dream - image James Reiser |
Your Name Means Dream is that rare thing in theatre: a production in which all the parts create a cohesive, compelling and totally creatively successful and satisfying whole.
US playwright José Rivera’s script is complex, intelligent, witty and disturbing; Kat Henry’s direction is meticulous and seamless; the two performers, Caroline Lee and Lucy Ansell, make a perfect duo, with impeccable timing, perfect balance, sensitivity and exceptional chemistry.
Lee plays Aislin, a stroppy, hard-drinking, ailing 65-year-old. She fully inhabits Aislin and is completely credible as this belligerent, mouthy, determined, resentful and desperately lonely woman. Her son, Roberto, rarely sees or speaks to her since her husband’s death years earlier and she feels abandoned and guilty.
In order to keep his distance, Roberto has organised the ideal carer for his mother: Stacy (Ansell) is efficient, skilful, obliging and a perfect physical specimen. She is also a robot!
Ansell makes this non-human creature a living, learning, feeling, almost-human being. It is remarkable to watch the complexity and easy athleticism of Ansell’s physicality, and her total immersion in Stacy’s character, her initially childlike responses, seemingly emotional reactions and her commitment to learning to be human-like and to be the best possible carer for Aislin.
Rivera’s play is set in one room in an apartment in the East Village of Manhattan. In this enclosed and isolated space, the powerful relationship between Aislin and Stacy develops in waves, shifting from combative and resistant, through needy and dependent, to warm and familial and finally into what seems to be love.
Henry’s production is swift-moving, and her direction is imaginative and richly layered, exploring and exposing the nuances of the two characters and their burgeoning relationship. Your Name Means Dream is as much about the inhumanity of society and the way it treats its ageing population as it is about the potential humanity and emotionality in the inhuman.
This may be the future for aged care, or even for social networks, friendships and families.
See this!
By Kate Herbert.
Cast
Caroline Lee
Lucy Ansell
Creative Team
Writer:
José
Rivera
Director: Kat Henry
Set & Costume Design: Hahnie Goldfinch
Lighting Design: Amelia Lever-Davidson
Assist. Set/Costume Design: Louisa Fitzgerald
Stage Manager: Finn McLeish.
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| Caroline Lee - Your Name Means Dream - image James Reiser |
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