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: Roam

Roam
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
13 October 2013
Red Stitch
to 9 November
redstitch.net

Adam J A Cass's Roam was developed through the Red Stitch Writers Program. Like his very successful I Love You, Bro (first seen at the 2007 Fringe), it's about remembering that no matter how anonymous we play on the internet, there's a person behind every hot game avatar, flattering wink and bitchy comment.

Johnny (Tim Potter) and Julia (Ella Caldwell) are unhappily happy in a relationship that's ok enough to keep going, but ignores the death of her father and the loss of his job.

For Johnny, comfort is the anonymity of web chat roulette and amateur porn. But his irresistible find is a 13-year-old girl (Ngaire Dawn Faire) from Estonia, whom he joins in an online game based on Ancient Rome. Here his credit card buys the points she can't afford and they fight together to rule Rome as the sexiest avatars. Then Julia logs in.

The story comes to virtually real life when the design team (Benjamin Shaw, Jason Bovaird, Clare Springett, David Nelson, Michael Watson and Daniel Nixon) bring the screen onto the stage and transform the stage to the hyper-reality of Roam's Rome. Even with a too-Tron moment, the digital design creates a world that shows non-gamers why some gamers never want to leave their screen life, where they can look how they want to and be all the people they'll never be bold enough to be in the dull reality of reality. (And this is why I stick to Candy Crush.)

Director and dramaturg Gary Abrahams worked with Cass on the script and their success is making an overwhelming and endlessly complex issue into a story about three people who are facing deaths and endings.

For all the whizz-bangery of the design, it's still the question of whether Johnny and Julia will survive that creates the story's tension and hope. However, I'd like to see more ambiguity about the 13-year-old  or a bigger story about her, especially as the script keeps glancing at consequences of adults playing online with children.

There's a level to Roam that hasn't been revealed yet and, of course, it has to keep playing to find its depth and its bigger world (and maybe a re-boot of the ending, which is satisfying but doesn't answer enough questions). But without programs like this Writers Program, new scripts like this wouldn't be able to develop in front of an audience and there's something raw and powerful about seeing a script at an early stage.

In the meantime, the cast grasp the work's heart and its story reaches into the world of anyone who plays on a screen.

This was on AussieTheatre.com