Sex with Strangers reviewed by Danielle Wood

Imagine the person you lost your virginity with ended up being not the one you married, but the one with whom you have an ongoing, if intermittent, affair – sometimes exhilarating, sometimes disappointing. Well, that’s how it is for me and the theatre.

I’m talking about real theatre, live theatre, the sort that I fell in love with as a teenager, back in that phase of life when too much was never enough. Although we’ve drifted apart, the theatre and me, still there are moments when we reconnect. We sometimes see each other here in Hobart, but not as often as I’d like. Mostly it’s when I’m off the leash and travelling that I make the effort to get in touch. Sometimes, I worry that we’ve permanently lost the magic, but then I’ll see a play good enough to set off a bunch of well-rehearsed chemical reactions in the brain and there it is: love all over again.

I’m guessing no-one at the Tasmanian Theatre Company knew that when they asked me along to their show Sex With Strangers, and to write something about it, the invitation was, for me, a little like getting a phone call from an old flame.

So, Sex with Strangers. The title alone is a come-on, and it’s worked for Ethan (Samuel Johnson), who’s made the New York Times bestseller list with a blog-turned-book that chronicles the outcome of his boast that for a whole year he could, each week, pick up a girl in a bar and get her to have sex with him. Ethan’s now rich and successful, with a powerful internet reach. But his dirty secret is that even he holds the vehicle of his success in contempt, and would rather be a literary novelist, like Olivia (Tottie Goldsmith).

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

by Stephenie Cahalan

Tasmanian Theatre Company

Director, Sue Benner and Assistant director Ivano Del Pio

Featuring Rowan Harris, Karissa Lane, Jane Longhurst, Jeff Michel

With cars left behind in the safety of a Sandy Bay car park, we boarded a minibus and rode through the streets of Hobart’s well-appointed middle class into another era. The bus exited the kerbed bitumen and climbed a winding dirt track to reach an architectural icon. 

Fort Nelson House is a rounded, glass eyrie that describes its owner and designer Esmond Dorney as craving both openness and seclusion.  The dwelling, which evolved over several iterations between 1966 and 1978, is surrounded by 78 acres of native bush overlooking the Tasman Peninsula, Bruny Island and the Meehan Range. The house and property, now owned and managed by the Hobart City Council, is rarely open to the public.

She’s Not Performing

Tasmanian Theatre Company

Backspace Theatre , Hobart

Written by Alison Mann

Directed by Belinda Bradley

Gai Anderson

Based on research done in the lead up to the National Apology for Forced Adoptions She’s not Performing follows the story of Margarite, one ordinary woman, who 25 years on, is still unable to reconcile her experience of forced adoption. Onstage we watch the consequences of this as her life and sanity unravel before us.

Starting slowly with vignettes alternating from dream sequences to reality, this very tightly written story gives nothing away. Gradually revealing the inner torment of this otherwise seemingly very ordinary women, tension builds palpably as the dark desperation of her hidden trauma begins to seep out, and we wonder how it will all end as her behaviour spirals out of control.

This may sound all too heavy, but its not, as this woman is very real, and the slow revelation of her twisted psycho - sexuality are revelatory rather than clichéd. It certainly gave me some food for thought, whilst for the  most part keeping me on the edge of my seat.

Directed by Belinda Bradley, the pacing is exquisite. The surreal scenes of the protagonist’s inner world in particular are very cleverly realised, with support of striking atmospheric sound and lighting designs of Matt Warren and Jason James. With strong performances from all the caste, in the challenging role as Margarite, Sara Pensalfino managed to walk the fine line between her characters traumatic disconnection from life and her sometimes necessary seeming lack of energy on stage in a very perceptive performance.

I had to push past the crowds that were pouring in the front door of the Theatre Royal for its latest panto-spectacular, to get to the BackSpace on Friday Night. So it was somewhat of a shock to be amongst less than 20 audience members for this riveting show. I could not help but wonder at the future and importance of such locally created theatre reflecting our own stories back to us. Not that I have anything against pantomimes  but it was a stark contrast, and She’s Not Performing is an impressive and powerful show.

She's Not Performing

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).

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. 

Appalling Behaviour

By Ben Walter
Professional Collective Theatre

Backspace Theatre

8.15pm Wednesday 23^rd May

Early in the piece, Stephen House's expatriate drifter latches on to a passing comment; a pedestrian observes that he seems to have an admirer. He's talking about a woman who wheedled the troubled homeless man from an altercation that was turning violent. It's an offhand remark, but for House's character it becomes a focus for hope among the dissipated inhumanity of his daily life among the Parisian underclass. The two days following are full of confusion, exaltation and disappointment as he interprets his relationships and experiences in the light of it.