Apologies to Session 4 but you were up against some three
decades of tradition when it comes to watching VFL/AFL Grand Finals, a battle
you were never going to win. It was a cracking game… for all of ten minutes.
Props to Festival Director and Sydney Swans fan Emma Davis for subtly sporting
her team’s colours into the evening. At least it wasn’t purple.
To Session 5 and the Goldfields Repertory Club won the toss
and elected to perform to the Subiaco end with a good crowd in attendance. They
kicked away early with Meg Lefroy and Shaun
Fessey starring in I Dream Before I Take The
Stand. Lefroy is the victim of a crime; Fessey the defence lawyer who
forensically and callously cross-examines her. This was unsettling and powerful
but a little frustrating as well. The pattern of questioning immediately
intrigued me but kept going along similar lines without any revelation or
twists to ratchet up the tension. The repetition started to become a little
tedious until finally we get to crux of the matter – a man that said hello to
Lefroy’s character as she walked to work through a park had followed her, the
rest left unsaid but the implication was clear.
The lawyer’s insistence of knowing every detail including
exactly how she was dressed down to what type of underwear made me squirm. I
wanted her to show moments of defiance or to fight back as the brutal badgering
was unrelenting. Differences in his tact of questioning would have helped with
the repetition of so-called facts. This was well performed by both
actors and certainly confronting. Simply staged by director Aaron Pendlebury it
was a good start to the evening and I loved that it fades out right at the
point where she begins to describe the crime. We know what happens next and the
unstated nightmare is left to fester in our imagination.
Up next was The Drive,
a 10 minute spotlight directed and produced by Clare Talbot and starring
Katrina Johnston and Cassee Lazic. Again, thoughts of mortality emerge as one
of the recurring themes of this year’s Dramafest. A girl (Johnston) races to
find help for ‘Tom’, her vehicle swerving and skidding through the countryside
only for him to abandon her as he dies. Lazic narrates the action as
(presumably) the girl’s conscience. I particularly liked her intoning the speed
of the vehicle as it accelerates and decelerates on this mercy dash. I was a
little confused when the two actors directly interacted with each other as I
had assumed they were aspects of one and the same character. I liked that
device but the overall impact was undercut by having no real idea who Tom was.
The Goldfields Repertory Club kicked further away as
halftime approached with the profanity laden and wonderfully performed Mag and Bag. Alana Saint and Karen Gurry
were fabulous as two elderly bag ladies who ‘barney’ amongst the clutter and
detritus of their lives. The foul-mouthed exchanges were inventive and funny
but what was most impressive is that there’s something totally endearing about
these two characters that makes us care. There are political references along
the way and it was hard to pinpoint an exact time period as we get nods to
historical figures from Menzies to Howard, Wran and Fraser. Yes, when the most
insulting curse of all is ‘Liberal’ (“I’d rather you call me a c***!”) and
delivered by two of life’s unfortunates you know exactly the political
sympathies at play. But this never overshadowed the chemistry between Saint and
Gurry who relished the verbal and occasional physical stoushes and made
excellent use of the space and a wide range of props.
Oftentimes swearing is
used merely to be ‘edgy’ or ‘shocking’ but here it was utterly in character and
delivered with such style and energy that it was truly a highlight. The only
downside was when parts of the dialogue were drowned out by over exuberant use
of the Benny Hill theme tune, itself a curious choice for such an identifiably
Australian piece. This was a real crowd favourite.
After halftime, producer-director Alison Seiler presented The Perfect Heart written by John de
Beaux. This play deals with the weighty issues of religious persecution,
illegal organ farming, heart transplants and another of Dramafest’s thematic
pillars, the afterlife. A young girl’s
parents take her to China to get a heart transplant, the organ in question
forcibly removed from a Falun Gong practitioner. She wakes to meet “John” (her
‘donor’) in that grey limbo between life and death to discover the cost of such
an action. This turned out to be very much a message play and while I don’t
doubt it seeks to shine a light on the persecution of Falun Gong in China and
the heinous practice of systematic organ harvesting it was too heavy-handed in
its approach. At times it felt more like a lecture than a piece of dramatic
theatre and while clearly heartfelt this meant it was dry and unconvincing.
I needed to see and feel the issues being dealt with not be
told about them in what was a recitation of researched facts. We see the girl
only after her parents have whisked her away to China and had the operation,
awakening in the limbo world. It would have been so much more effective if we
had met her beforehand and she had to make a decision about whether to go to China
to accept a transplant most likely from a tainted donation process or by refusing,
die. Give her real stakes – it’s easy to be principled when nothing is being
risked. Then you could have explored the reactions of family, friends and
colleagues to whatever decision she made and how they influenced that decision.
Make her agonise over it, not merely deal with the ramifications after the deed
is taken out of her hands.
Also, a tip when writing dialogue – any time a character
starts a line of dialogue with “As you know…” or “Do you remember when…?” they
are immediately talking directly to the audience. This kind of writing was rife
in the script. If both characters already know the information about to be
imparted it is straight exposition and on the nose. Put a red line through
every instance of this and work out how to show the audience the information
rather than a stand and deliver telling of it.
As always, Adam T Perkins’ adjudicator feedback – or in
keeping with today’s loose football metaphor, after match press conference -
was informative and entertaining. I am really enjoying his insights into
stagecraft and how to enliven scenes by exploring different choices and
‘playing’ with the material at hand.
The final two Dramafest sessions are on Sunday at 10am and 2pm at Hackett Hall in Floreat.
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