Review: Oil

Oil
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
17 November 2019
Cromwell Road Theatre
to 15 December
redstitch.net

Daniela Farinacci. "Oil". Photo by John Lloyd Fillingham

Oil by UK writer Ella Hickson takes place between 1889 and 2051. Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas) began to be used in the late 1800s and it's predicted to take about 250 years for humans to use all of the fossil fuels on earth. It will take millions of years for our fossilised bodies to make more.

But Red Stitch's Australian premiere of this 2016 play is far more than a history lesson, social commentary or plea for us to treat our world better.

While it moves from Cornwell and Hamstead in the UK to Tehran and Bagdad in Iran, with visits from Libya and China, its emotional spine and connection to the audience is the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Daniela Farinacci and Hannah Fredericksen are both mesmerising as consistent characters who age as each act moves in time and place. Their story of choice, sacrifice, loneliness and the line between control and love is gripping as it finds its space in the parallel story about humanity. If only we could always choose to have light, warmth and freedom.

Red Stitch have opened a new theatre in South Yarra in an old Anglican church hall. It's bigger than their St Kilda theatre and gives the space needed to share an epic story, especially as its age asks how many other stories have been told in this place. The church next door was built about 150 years ago so would have been lit by candles.

The script is layered and structurally balanced in ways that ask even more questions as its brings attention to the writing. Director Ella Caldwell adds more layers and questions with a consistently strong cast (Jennifer Vuletic, Darcy Brown, Jing-Xuan Chan, Matthew Whitty, Justin Hosking, Charlie Cousins, Krisraw Jones-Shukoor, Nicole Nabout) who let the epic nature of the work tell the story; characters create the world rather than letting the world create the characters.

Some of the most striking performances can't easily be seen. The only time the full cast is on stage is in act one in a farm lit by candles. Candles don't create much light. Clare Springett's lighting (working with Greg Clarke's set and Chloe Greaves character-defining costumes) is the character that influences every choice in Oil and makes the telling extraordinary.

It's so easy to dismiss how much we depend on the light and warmth created by fossil fuels, as it's so easy to know why we choose light and warmth. And to question it all in an old dark hall is riveting.

Review: Looking Glass

Looking Glass
New Working Group
3 August 2017
fortyfivedownstairs
to 13 August
fortyfivedownstairs.com

Peter Houghton Daniella Farinacci. Looking Glass. Photo by Pier Carthew

One of the many things I love about Louris van de Geer's writing is that she forces her audience question everything they see on the stage, and that any story chosen by the audience can be far from from what the playwright and creators intended.

He new work Looking Glass is presented by the New Working Group, a network of 11 independent Melbourne writers, directors and designers, and received development funding from the Australia Council, Creative Victoria and the Angior Family Foundation.

Marcus (Daniel O'Neill, who alternates with Thomas Taylor) is about nine; a time when you're not a child or a teenager and are testing independence and the limits of family love. One day he lies face down on the floor and won't get up. His parents (Daniela Farinacci and Peter Houghton) turn to outside help in the form of tall and mysterious Josh Price, who could be the doctor trying to save them, every person they meet or everyone they wish they met.

It can be seen as a standard family-psychology story – van de Geer is inspired by Charles Cooley's 1902  looking glass theory about how we develop our sense of self based on how we see ourselves reflected through others – but nothing about this production is that simple.

The story is grounded by director Susie Dee creating a strong familial connection with the family. There's a genuine warmth between the characters and the audience, even if they are struggling to find that warmth or connection, or the reflection of it, in their lives.

The counterpoint to this familiarity is the design by Kate Davis (set and costume) and Amelia Lever-Davidson (lighting) that never lets know where we are. A white floor is boxed in by heavy yellow plastic curtains – somewhere between sunshine and urine yellow – that define a room but don't fully conceal what's going on outside it' walls and allow anyone to enter or exit from any spot. The colours and mood change from a clinical clean whiteness, which could be hospital or prison, to underground dark black and reds that change any idea of yellow. It could a family home as easily as a dystopian future, an afterlife, a dream or anything we want, or need, to see reflected on the stage.

I chose my narrative early on and it worked for me – I thought the child was dead or had never been born – but there are many other interpretations of the story that are as logical and obvious.

Looking Glass is complex and fascinating theatre because it holds onto its answers tightly while creating the connection and emotion that begs for answers.

Review: Bare Witness

Bare Witness
La Mama and fortyfivedownstairs
22 September 2010
fortyfivedownstairs
season ended

I couldn't see Bare Witness until its last week and so hope we see it return as it's a moving, relevant and original piece of theatre with memories that creep up on you days after seeing it.

Mari Lourey wanted to write about photo journalists in war zones. She isn't one, so she spoke to journalists and documentary makers who have been in places and situations that most of us can't imagine – and wouldn't know so much about had these people not been there. Their authentic voices lead Lourey's powerful writing.

Bare Witness is the story of fictional Danni who goes from her cadetship to Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 90s. Here she is confronted by notions like moving a body to get a better picture and the horror of knowing that a child saw herself dying in a camera lense. She also met people who were determined to document the genocide. Associated Press buy a photo from her and she "hardens up",  becomes a well known photographer and travels to Iraq and East Timor, where she's personally confronted with the impact of her profession.

This is a story about photographs that uses words to depict the images. The script has been intricately whittled down to its essence with each word chosen for its impact. But words are an inadequate substitute for the visual impact of photos.

It's the understanding and overcoming of this problem that makes Bare Witness connect so strongly with the emotional intent of its writing.  Director Nadja Kostich, composer extraordinaire Jethro Woodward and the design team (Marg Howell, Michael Carmody and Emma Valente) create a world that fills in the visceral and emotional impact of photos and combines it with the overwhelming fear, speed and tension of being in a place where the threat of death is normal.

The physical performance is choreographed, but unlike dance, the movement underlines and supports the script and the heart-piercing performances of Isaac Drandic, Daniela Farinacci, Adam McConvell, Todd MacDonald and Maria Theodorakis.

A friend of mine, who sadly isn't with us any more, was a photo journalist who had been to places depicted on the stage. Within minutes of meeting, he told me that once he was back in safe Melbourne, he was compelled to take photos of car accidents and accepted his post traumatic stress as part of the job. Later he chatted about trying to get into Iraq even though journalists were banned and then stopped and said to me, "You must think we're mad."

Bare Witness captures that madness; a madness that's made of compulsion, compassion, bravery and singleminded determination. I've never been to a war zone, and I think this work shows us what it feels like in the heads of those who have been there. But what makes it such an emotional experience is its capture of the offstage characters: the confused, the lonely and sometimes angry voices of families and friends who wonder who is baring witness to the lives of their loved ones, whose singleminded determination can forget about the home waiting for them to return.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com