By Anica
Boulanger-Mashberg
Alison
Mann’s first full-length play, She’s Not
Performing, weaves a handful of lives around its central issue: the
long-term impacts and aftermaths of forced adoption. The play broils with the
anger and loss which is a daily part of life for Margarite (Sara Pensalfini),
decades after giving up her daughter for adoption. Her unresolved pain
ricochets and reverberates violently into her relationships with both her
current boyfriend Ian (Campbell McKenzie), and also Hamish (Joe Clements), a connection from her past. Bryony Geeves
completes the quartet as Annie, a young stripper Margarite becomes preoccupied
with (thinking perhaps Annie could be her daughter).
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| Image courtesy Theatre Royal website |
Director
Belinda Bradley has handled some of the most sensitive scenes gently, allowing
the story to bleed from its characters at just the right pace, and integrating
a sometimes addictively claustrophobic and suitably nightmarish soundscape by Matt
Warren. In other places, however, the actors don’t yet seem to feel comfortable
in their roles, and a certain hesitance and lack of connection to the text
occasionally forms a barrier to audience empathy. The minimalist design and
moody yet unpretentious lighting serve effectively as each of the different
settings, but also leave the actors quite naked (sometimes literally) in the
moments where they are not yet at ease.
The
production is at its strongest during the scenes that depart from reality in
one way or other: in dreams, memories, flashbacks, fantasies. During these
sections the cast seem more willing to take risks, the dialogue – perhaps
ironically – sounds more real, and all the production elements come together
powerfully.
The
season should bring more cohesion to the relationships and allow the actors to
fully embody their roles, as well as develop the moments of humour in the
script which cautiously poked their way through the fury in this opening-night
performance.
She’s Not
Performing is presented by Tasmanian Theatre
Company and will continue at the Theatre Royal Backspace until November 29,
2013.
