Friday, October 15, 2010

The Golden Age

The Golden Age
Old Nick
The Peacock Theatre
15 – 30 October

This production is disturbing on a number of levels – many of them just as they should be, but some the fault of an imperfect script.

On one hand, I wholeheartedly recommend that you get along to the show. It deserves support: it is challenging and worthwhile, and performed with strength and commitment. Set primarily in Tasmania during the Second World War, the play has at its heart the fate of an isolated, perhaps genetically compromised, tribe discovered in the wilderness by two young men struggling with their own place in Australia at this point in history; Louis Nowra’s preoccupation with ‘otherness’ is evident.

Despite its powerful choices and intentions, I find the script profoundly problematic.