2 Days, 6 Plays - Part II
Picking up the baton from my last post….
The Wiredancer’s Waltz (Sven Swenson) pitches a pregnant Judi beside her laconic fella Frank, the two keeping vigil over a dead codger until help arrives. The set-up is delicious: death and birth at close quarters. And the finale has powerful life-affirming charm. Yet along the way the lack of intimacy reduces the stakes between the warring pair. Judi’s shrill for most of Act 1. And why’s she there in the house anyway, alongside her Meals on Wheels beau? Maybe I missed that detail. Paring the preamble spats, and adding just a touch of touch (a dead body can work such magic), this will be a rewarding play.
Play #7 on this supersize programme was Savage River by Steve Rodgers, a three-hander based in remote western Tassie. Kingsley is the conniving can-do father of Tiger, a half-caste mutton birder. Their bond is held to ransom by the arrival of a fugitive stripper named Jude. As unlikely as the cocktail seems, this is a kick-arse potion, an intense sequence of charged theatrical moments compelling each character to face their uncertain future. The m-word (masterpiece) was murmured more than once in the post-mortem foyer. Savage River is primed to storm the Australian canon.
Leaving us with Concussion, so to speak, by the prolific Ross Mueller. Erase the words cock, fuck, come, shit and accordion and you’re left with a narrow text. Mueller’s work is more a visceral response to web-porn’s spell on the modern psyche, how our common ground is amoral quicksand. and trust is a quaint commodity. Set to be staged as a manic desktop, with each mini-scene a moment in this reverse-running narrative, Concussion can only benefit from the outing. I guess the work’s curse lies in the irony that Mueller is keening against life’s cheapening, and therefore presents to us cheapened lives about which we consequently care little. A puzzle perhaps for the blogosphere to solve.
On that note, this blogger would like to commend the rich ordeal that is the National Play Festival, and in particular the exuberatant hosting of Artistic Director, Chris Mead. I should confess to submitting a work among the 160 wannabes back in September, only to miss out. But rather than stew, and make voodoo dolls of rival scribes, I took up the dare offered by the Fest, and flew to see the state of Australian theatre in utero. Early days, but the ultrasound image was stunning.