REVIEW | Nightfall
April 18th 2000 02:34
Sydney Theatre Company presents the Playbox Theatre production of
NIGHTFALL
by JOANNA MURRAY-SMITH
CAST: Margaret Cameron, Ian Scott, Victoria Longley DIRECTOR Jenny Kemp DESIGNER Dale Ferguson LIGHTING DESIGNER Rachel Burke COMPOSER Elizabeth Drake
This production premiered at The CUB Malthouse, Melbourne on 16 November, 1999. The Sydney season opened at Wharf 1 on 12 April, 2000.
I remember a tutorial during the National Playwright's Center Stage One Course, the advice was It can be tricky to insert a few lines where the audience must anticipate the end of the sentence, and hear it in their own minds though it's never uttered on stage. Don't write it down. Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith seems to have taken this notion to the uttermost extreme, and then to be tricky ended a few sentences here and there for good measure.
Being a production from out of town it looks a little like it has landed quite frumpishly on the Wharf 1 Stage. A tiny grey carpet square with dug-in red-brick border surrounded by an empty grey pebble dead garden. A brass bell suspended at the doorway a tiny bookcase with the obligatory decanter of Scotch nicely stationed at the right angle from a two seater lounge, a single lounge chair at another right angle with chandelier hanging over the lot.
Big yard wall with dead trees up the back. Didn't seem made for the Wharf 1 space. It looked quite cluttered. The lighting design very gothic with shades of green and blue hued over faces as a bitter and painful truth surfaces, I quite appreciated that subtle touch. The text I found difficult. I got sick of the unfinished repetitive ranting. Victoria Longley spent half of the play in shadow, the other half with her back to half of the audience which must be a mistake although she did it well. Longley plays Kate Saskell friend of twenty-three year old Cora Kingsley. Cora, like Godot, is the subject of the evenings drama so we only hear about her, what she wantswe share what Coras parents Emily and Edward Kingsley who await her appearance go through to acknowledge Cora, so her arrival is safe, clear.
This is the first time Cora is arriving home after seven years of self inflicted exile. Even though I'd like to say she was in exile because she was sick of her parents nearly never
finishing a sentence between them, it is not because of that. She has left because, well,
is it not obvious? (Unacknowledged by her parents) Abused child. It's possibly a story that needs to be told with emotion. I found the stilted performances a little too robotic but maybe that was the intention. Maybe Emily and Edward are so far removed from their true emotions, so self expressionless, they must be played like robotic angst cushions. I did not enjoy the performances yet I did not think they were bad. It did seem lacking in emotional depth. Very little connectedness, so no sparks flying between the actors at all. Longley waves Cora into the 'safe house' at the end of the play, I caught a spark there.
Too undernourished to be truly Goth, but the potential for a very Gothic production is there. Too pretentious to be realistic. Not enough emotion to be tragic. Wrought with middle class mythology. As soon as you hear the story you know you have seen this story played out a million times before. In this telling the playwright has chosen a style I hope she gets over. It did not really grab me. I think it may appeal to some because it is trickily clever and there are some fair quips made about cynics. The actors, well I felt sorry for them, they seemed to me to be a little like Guinea Pigs who were being forced to perform in a strange and ill fitting cage.
David Paul Jobling
NIGHTFALL
by JOANNA MURRAY-SMITH
CAST: Margaret Cameron, Ian Scott, Victoria Longley DIRECTOR Jenny Kemp DESIGNER Dale Ferguson LIGHTING DESIGNER Rachel Burke COMPOSER Elizabeth Drake
This production premiered at The CUB Malthouse, Melbourne on 16 November, 1999. The Sydney season opened at Wharf 1 on 12 April, 2000.
I remember a tutorial during the National Playwright's Center Stage One Course, the advice was It can be tricky to insert a few lines where the audience must anticipate the end of the sentence, and hear it in their own minds though it's never uttered on stage. Don't write it down. Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith seems to have taken this notion to the uttermost extreme, and then to be tricky ended a few sentences here and there for good measure.
Being a production from out of town it looks a little like it has landed quite frumpishly on the Wharf 1 Stage. A tiny grey carpet square with dug-in red-brick border surrounded by an empty grey pebble dead garden. A brass bell suspended at the doorway a tiny bookcase with the obligatory decanter of Scotch nicely stationed at the right angle from a two seater lounge, a single lounge chair at another right angle with chandelier hanging over the lot.
Big yard wall with dead trees up the back. Didn't seem made for the Wharf 1 space. It looked quite cluttered. The lighting design very gothic with shades of green and blue hued over faces as a bitter and painful truth surfaces, I quite appreciated that subtle touch. The text I found difficult. I got sick of the unfinished repetitive ranting. Victoria Longley spent half of the play in shadow, the other half with her back to half of the audience which must be a mistake although she did it well. Longley plays Kate Saskell friend of twenty-three year old Cora Kingsley. Cora, like Godot, is the subject of the evenings drama so we only hear about her, what she wantswe share what Coras parents Emily and Edward Kingsley who await her appearance go through to acknowledge Cora, so her arrival is safe, clear.
This is the first time Cora is arriving home after seven years of self inflicted exile. Even though I'd like to say she was in exile because she was sick of her parents nearly never
finishing a sentence between them, it is not because of that. She has left because, well,
is it not obvious? (Unacknowledged by her parents) Abused child. It's possibly a story that needs to be told with emotion. I found the stilted performances a little too robotic but maybe that was the intention. Maybe Emily and Edward are so far removed from their true emotions, so self expressionless, they must be played like robotic angst cushions. I did not enjoy the performances yet I did not think they were bad. It did seem lacking in emotional depth. Very little connectedness, so no sparks flying between the actors at all. Longley waves Cora into the 'safe house' at the end of the play, I caught a spark there.
Too undernourished to be truly Goth, but the potential for a very Gothic production is there. Too pretentious to be realistic. Not enough emotion to be tragic. Wrought with middle class mythology. As soon as you hear the story you know you have seen this story played out a million times before. In this telling the playwright has chosen a style I hope she gets over. It did not really grab me. I think it may appeal to some because it is trickily clever and there are some fair quips made about cynics. The actors, well I felt sorry for them, they seemed to me to be a little like Guinea Pigs who were being forced to perform in a strange and ill fitting cage.
David Paul Jobling
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