Tag Archives: 25A

Life is a Dream

9 Sep

This is a fascinating piece of theatre.

It’s a contemporary adaptation of Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s original play, a classic of the Spanish Golden Era.

In both versions, Segismundo is imprisoned at birth because of an omen suggesting he will be a threat to the royal family.

In this version, by Australian writer Claudia Osborne, the story is streamlined and the focus becomes the dreadful impact of marginalisation (which is somewhat different from the original – but more on that later.)

This version begins with a long sequence in which Segismundo is imprisoned in his cell. To justify his imprisonment, his warder, Clotaldo, repeatedly tells him He is dangerous and destructive, but not in this room. We watch Segismundo both deal with boredom and guess at the nature of the outside world he can only know through home videos, books and conversation. For quite some time, we’re not told why Segismundo has to live this existence, and the suspense of this sequence and its hint of allegory seems informed not only by the 17th century original but also by 20th century absurdism. Directed by Solomon Thomas and Osborne, the humour and pathos are beautifully rendered. Thomas Campbell is terrific in his portrayal of Clotaldo, his complicity in an injustice and his love for his prisoner fighting a silent, heart-wrenching battle. Ariyan Sharma as Segismundo gives a brilliant performance, skilfully presenting the physical comedy, while still portraying the character’s innocence and wide-eyed vulnerability.

Then, suddenly, on the king’s birthday, Segismundo is allowed to meet his family for the first time. The sequence that follows is a thrilling tonal change. From the gentle evocative pace of the imprisonment scenes, it now feels as though we’ve been thrown into the living-room-cum-board-room of a hyper-privileged family, where tensions are entirely explicit (partly because of the repetition of refrains like This is fucked up!) Mark Lee as the king, Essie Randles as his daughter, Shiv Palekar as his eldest son, and Ariadne Sgouros as his daughter-in-law bring to this sequence a fierce energy (though I wish the script had allotted more space to the exploration of their characters and motivations.)

But that isn’t the piece’s focus. The focus is the experience of the marginalised, or more precisely, the demonised. And, yes, I’m getting awfully close to spoiler territory, so I’ll tread carefully – but what the piece offers is a powerful warning about the tendency of prophecies to be self-fulfilling. Expect evil, and you encourage it. This is a timely reminder in our current political climate, one in which we increasingly fall into the temptation of deciding that those who are different to us, or who disagree with us, are irredeemable enemies. Our certainty of their evil will prove us correct – and that may well be our only satisfaction.

But it’s not only what this piece does that makes it fascinating, but also what it doesn’t do. Osborne has created a version of Life is a Dream for our era, with our desire for social justice and our condemnation of the misuse of power. Written for a very different era, Calderón’s version ends very differently. And in the original, the title evoked more than the exclusion of the marginalised from what the hegemony might call reality. It also suggested something of Life’s grand mystery, something of the wonder of existence expressed by so many writers in Spain’s Golden Era (and which, incongruously, I’ll exemplify by a quote from the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi: Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am a man?)

Awareness of the difference between the two texts invites some rather confronting questions. In our journey to modernity, what we have gained and what we have lost? No one can argue with a culture that’s cured small pox and condemns slavery. But still, one might regret a certain diminishment, a shrinking of the soul, a soul that now knows only answers, and knows not wonder.

But awareness of the difference between the texts, or indeed any knowledge of the original, is unnecessary for the enjoyment of this piece.

It’s surprising and vibrant, fun and thought-provoking.

Paul Gilchrist

Life is a Dream by Claudia Osborne, after Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Presented by Fervour

At Downstairs Belvoir, as part of 25A, until Sept 21

belvoir.com.au

Image by Phil Erbacher

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Snakeface

15 Apr

The marketing gave me the impression this piece would interrogate the experience of queer black women in white Australia via ancient Greek myths. This struck me as inauspicious, the equivalent of attempting to explain quantum mechanics using hieroglyphics.

But, as they say in Jurassic Park, “Theatre finds a way” (or they say something like that; I couldn’t really hear over the roar of all those dinosaurs.)

As it turns out, this piece does not claim to represent the queer black experience. Nothing in the monologue implies anything so outrageously reductive.

And the use of Greek myth is beautifully subtle and intensely powerful.

I will admit, however, that for a while, I feared this one had defeated me. The 90 minute monologue was a challenge, both because of its confronting subject matter and because of the difficulty I had following its narrative.

But, ultimately, it offers a rich, raw and deeply humane insight into love and vulnerability.

Written and performed by Aliyah Knight, and directed by Bernadette Fam, Snakeface presents a fictional character who seeks love and suffers brutality. Knight has a wonderfully warm, engaging stage presence, generating immense sympathy for the character.

Knight’s language is stunningly poetic. Its ruling motif is physicality; it’s visceral, sensual, violent. There’s much talk of bodily fluids and organs. There’s the suggestion that Truth is found only in the rag and bone shop of existence: one lover is judged honest or genuine because of the animal-like noises he makes in the bedroom.

Knight’s own physicality, a hypnotising balance of rhythm and writhe, emphasises the primacy of the body.

The set by Keerthi Subramanyam is dominated by a huge slab of clay, reflecting the character’s interest in sculpture and the plastic arts. But also, via its biblical and classical connotations, it suggests vulnerability. Are we made of mere clay? Will we be reduced to stone? (It also hints at the hopefulness of creation, but more on that later.)

Back to the Greek myths. The Medusa motif effectively expresses the seemingly overwhelming desire to destroy those who have hurt us. And the character has been seriously mistreated, a victim of at least one sexual assault. And though rage is presented as an utterly natural response to brutality, the inspiring maturity of the piece is that it’s not valorised. Rage is an attribute of a monster, one wrought by cruelty. Rage is no resting place.

And a resting place is finally offered, a new creation is possible, one that embraces the physical, but also knows a calm that transcends it.

Paul Gilchrist

Snakeface by Aliyah Knight

Presented by Fruit Box Theatre, as part of 25A

At Downstairs Belvoir until 27 April

belvoir.com.au

Image by Abraham de Souza 

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Furious Mattress

17 Mar

This is a beautifully realised production of a fascinating, and odd, play.

Written by Melissa Reeves and directed by Margaret Thanos, it tells the story of a backyard exorcism.

Though based on a true story, it’s a mix of satire and black comedy.

Reeves’ script invites theatricality, and Thanos gleefully accepts that invitation, giving us a show that is gloriously wild.

Performances are excellent. Matilda Ridgway as Else, the victim of the exorcism, is an ever-intriguing mix of impish mischief, startled bewilderment and sheer panic. Julian Garner is terrific as Pierce, her husband, an uncomfortable, naive dag who reveals a terrifying coldness. And it’s a delicious insight of both script and performance that this callousness is shown to spring directly from Pierce’s less threatening qualities. Anna, a member of their church, is keen to assist at the exorcism, and Alex Malone plays her with a delightful whiff of superiority and hypocrisy. (The truly religious are probably much shallower – or much deeper – than the rest of us.) Shan-Ree Tan is hilarious as the exorcist: part-cowboy, part-clown and all glib hubris.

I began by suggesting the play was odd, and there are several reasons for my assessment.

Firstly, in so far as it is satire, the target seems oddly specific. But perhaps exorcism is a more common problem in Australia than I’m aware. Or, if the play is meant as a criticism of Christianity in general, I suspect many members of that faith might question its validity, feeling it’s the equivalent of a satire aimed at Islam that focusses solely on suicide bombers.

The second element of oddness is the structure of the play. It begins with the end. Considering the nature of that end, for the rest of the performance it was difficult for me to laugh at the characters’ gullibility and hubris because I knew, only too clearly, to what horror they ultimately led.

The spoiler rule makes the third element of oddness challenging to discuss; so I’ll be appropriately vague. We’re shown scenes of wonderful theatricality, but they seem to imply that the wacky demonology of these Christians is not as preposterous as the satire might have us believe.

But that’s why the play is fascinating, as well as odd. I’ve called it a black comedy and a satire, but I’m probably being far too reductive. Reeves’ keen, clever, crazy script deserves an assessment more concordant with its explosive, transgressive nature. As a representation of a community dealing with evil, or what they assume is evil, the piece invites reflection, both serious and stimulating.

Possession by demons is a rather minor narrative in modern Christianity. The major narrative is that our faults can be forgiven if we are repentant. But what the minor and major narratives have in common is that the individual and the evil are differentiated. In the minor narrative, it’s the demon that’s evil; in the major narrative, it’s the sin. In both, the individual is presented as redeemable.

Ironically, it’s our secular philosophies that increasingly conflate the individual with evil. (Ironic, because it’s those philosophies that most enjoy satirical jibes at Christianity). Admittedly, current events in America do make very tempting the conflation of the individual and evil. But it only takes a modicum of ethical maturity to question such too-easy-simplicity. Political maturity also suggests that such a simplistic vision is problematic, as it precludes the possibility of positive change. Telling people they’re evil is not a particularly effective rallying cry. In fact, in the political sphere, as long as we view those we disagree with as simply evil, there seems only one way to deal with them – one uncannily like what happens in this play.

Paul Gilchrist

Furious Mattress by Melissa Reeves

presented by Legit Theatre Co.

at Downstairs Belvoir, as part of 25A

until 29 March

belvoir.com.au

Image by Robert Catto

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Ruins أطلال

5 Oct

A woman travels to Lebanon. It was trip she was meant to make with her father, a man who’d expressed great attachment to the country of his origin.

Written by Emily Ayoub, Madeline Baghurst & Mine Cerci, and conceived and co-directed by Ayoub & Baghurst, Ruins explores connections with family and with place.

Though having an engaging text – much of which is delivered with a wonderfully rich, wistful regret by Tony Poli as the father – it’s at heart a piece of choreographed movement.

As such, it’s a stunningly beautiful work of visual metaphor. A door dances about the stage, a potent symbol both of entrances to new worlds and barriers to those lost.  A tray becomes a mirror and, looking at herself, the woman sees the past to which she is intrinsically linked. Ayoub’s performance powerfully expresses the complex joys and pains of love and loss. There’s projection: the woman and her father watch together films by Jean Cocteau, and discover his motif of mirrors, doors to the underworld, to the past. Does every mirror in the world lead here?

But perhaps the most salient image is the ruins of the temple of Baalbek. The woman is told she should visit the ruins for two reasons. One is that they teach ephemerality (also taught by this show’s 45 min running time). The other reason is to find a bond with the past.

The temple is to Baal. Baal is an ancient god, worshipped possibly before Yahweh, and certainly before the father of Jesus of Nazareth or Allah (if these sort of temporal differentiations make any sense in relation to the divine.) And Baal is a jealous god. He extracts a toll on everyone who leaves the homeland over which He rules: a piece of their heart. It’s a poignant image of the pain of displacement.

The focus on Baal avoids contemporary tensions in the Middle East, but it also harks back to a pre-Axial Age world view. Baal is ancient, and perhaps old fashioned. By old fashioned, I don’t mean irrelevant; I mean in conflict with challenging modern realities. In a world where so many people are adrift, so many people have migrated, so many people live on lands different from their ancestors, so many people must share their ancestral homes with the displaced, any intense bond to a particular place inevitably means heartache.

It all had me thinking about Simone Weil’s observation that What is taken from us does us harm, while what we give up does us good.

This splendid meditation on connection and loss is both evocative and provocative.

Paul Gilchrist  

Ruins أطلال by Emily Ayoub, Madeline Baghurst & Mine Cerci

Presented by Clockfire Theatre Company

at Belvoir as part of 25a, until 20 Oct

belvoir.com.au

Image by Geoff Magee

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POV

3 Jun

This is an intriguing one.

It has layer upon layer, making it a very rich theatrical experience.

Let me try to explain the basic set-up.

Each night of the production a different pair of actors play the mother and father of an 11 year old child. The child actor, either Edith Whitehead or Mabelle Rose, is prepared. The adult actors are not.

The child actor helps the adult actors through the performance, telling them where to stand, helping them understand their roles, ensuring they’re reading their lines from the right source (printed script or electronic screen.) The child’s director-like role is facilitated by the fact that the story being told is one in which the child, Bub, is making a documentary film about her parents. The complication is that mum is suffering a mental illness, and dad is uncertain how to help his daughter navigate this. (Bub writes to the legendary documentary film maker Werner Herzog for advice, and receives responses.)

What’s the impact of all this? I’ll break it into four points. (And I choose the noun consciously, points being sharp, and this piece written by Mark Rogers and directed by Solomon Thomas is whip smart.)

Firstly, and most obviously, the piece is a poignant reminder of what mental illness can do to its sufferers and to those they love. However, the emotional impact is tempered by the set-up; we’re never really encouraged to forget these are actors playing roles. And Bub’s additional role of ring master means any confusion or fear this child character might experience is diluted. But representational realism, a request to believe in the veracity of imagined characters and the world they inhabit, is clearly not the aim.

Secondly, the set-up highlights the wondrous skill of the actors. On the night I saw the show, Yael Stone and Benedict Hardie played the parents. To see gifted actors adapt to the tricky conditions and explore roles they knew nothing about only minutes before is a true delight, a testimony to the mastery of these performers. And 13 year old Edith Whitehead is utterly brilliant, confident and composed. Rogers’ script has much fun playing with stereotypes of the precocious child – and Whitehead lands each joke like a pilot with a life-time of experience. This second point, about the performances, develops the first: we’re being asked to pay attention to the art more than the reality it could represent.

And the third point makes sense of why we’re being asked to focus on the art. The improvisational form of the piece operates as a metaphor for how we actually deal with challenges like mental illness: we make it up as we go, trying to make the best of what is thrown at us. Despite endless media articles bearing absurd titles like “What not to say to someone who is depressed” or “How to talk to your child about bi-polar” there never will be a definitive correct response to Life’s wildness. (In the performance I saw, Stone twice ad-libbed lines. On one of those occasions, the piece invited her to do so, asking her to share how she might explain mental illness to a child. Her answer was beautiful – humble and wise. On the other occasion, she simply broke character and said “I didn’t think it would be this hard.” This stepping out of the art form and reflecting on the process was the most moving moment of the show. To find this to be the case is quite a provocation, and links with my final point.)  

Which is…. the filming of the documentary also operates as metaphor. A cynic might suggest that the whole film motif simply allows the theatre makers to play with technology. But creating a documentary (as the term suggests) is an attempt to document the Truth. And that’s what we so desperately try do when confronted with wildness – we try to control it, we try to make sense of it, we even try to find the mysterious alchemy that might transform our pain and bewilderment into beauty. With Herzog always hovering just out of sight, the piece can hint that making art is akin to dealing with Life’s bigger challenges. “Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life,” says Herzog. And once again, this is an exciting provocation. The statement is normative. Should? Many of us don’t have much choice.

POV is an extraordinarily inventive piece, one sure to send audiences out into the night with minds burning with questions about the theatrical form, and with hearts relit with compassion for those who suffer.  

Paul Gilchrist

POV

Text by Mark Rogers

At Belvoir as part of 25a until June 16

belvoir.com.au

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Not Now, Not Ever: A Parliament of Women

19 Mar

This is the silliest thing I’ve seen for quite a while.

It purports to be a modern adaptation of Assemblywomen by Aristophanes, but the connection with the ancient text is tenuous.

Fans of the original will be disappointed (so I suspect there won’t be much disappointment.)

The original play would be distasteful to most modern audiences. In it, the women of Athens take over the assembly, certain that they can do a better job of running the city than the men. Aristophanes is satirising the male leadership of his time, suggesting even women could do better. (It’s akin to a sporting slur like Even my grandmother could bowl faster, which is difficult to interpret as being in praise of grandmothers.)

The original play was written two and a half thousand years ago but Margaret Thanos, creator of this adaptation, has clearly not made much use of the time.

Instead of a closely worked, razor sharp script, her goal has been to create a space in which high energy comic performance can thrive, and in this she has excelled, presenting a production that is gloriously exuberant.

Thanos and the cast of co-writers leave Aristophanes behind. Despite the title, there is no parliament of women. The story revolves around two of the ancient Greek gods vying to get their chosen candidate elected to the modern Australian Parliament; we never actually see that institution. The point is that we as a nation have trouble electing women. But the gods of Olympus don’t exist as characters in the ancient text, and their addition here is more about creating opportunities for crazy mayhem, rather than sharpening any satire.   

Satire is not really the goal. Yes, the protagonist Prax pretends to be a man in order to be considered seriously as a candidate. But the implied criticism of Australian society is weakened by the fact this strategy is urged, not by a member of the Australian public, not by a cynical member of one of our established parties, but by Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, played by a male actor in a skirt. And oddly, the election appears to be about choice of prime minister, which is not a feature of our system. Similarly loose, one of Prax’s campaign policies is Equal Pay for Women, though at no time is it suggested how the legislature might achieve this, considering it was legally established in Australia in 1972. But then, another of the policies touted is Votes for Animals.

So, no, not really satire. But wonderful fun! Much of the humour is what snobs call undergraduate (a term which has always left me wondering about the nature of post-doc humour.) But there’s a shit pile of scatological jokes, simulated masturbation and sex, including one orgasm featuring the traditional whipped cream, and not one, but two examples of that much underrated mirth maker: bestiality.

Thanos has gathered a brilliant cast and guides them all to top class comic performances. Emma O’Sullivan as Prax is a delightful mix of bewilderment and determination. Matt Abotomey as the opposing candidate is enormous fun, portraying with consummate comic skill the man who knows, that in this male world, you only have to be that least inspiring of things: a good bloke. Richard Hilliar as Athena has an absolutely divine stage presence. Hannah Raven gives a superb parody of the stereotypical vamp. Clay Crighton as Hermes gives a beautiful portrait of sanity amidst madness, the axis around which this crazy world spins.

A female PM? Not now.

Not ever?

If a more just society can come about through sheer energy, then the answer to that question is soon.

Paul Gilchrist

Not Now, Not Ever: A Parliament of Women created and directed by Margaret Thanos

Downstairs Belvoir until 31 March

belvoir.com.au

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Darwin’s Reptilia

19 Nov

This is a playful puzzle of a piece.

Written by Charlie Falkner, it works a few standard tropes: begin with a death that draws together some unlikely characters, then add some sort of natural phenomena (flood, avalanche, snowstorm, or the like) that prevents these characters escaping each other. Here it’s Renata and Flicks’ mother who has died, and so the dissimilar sisters meet for the very first time. The imprisoning setting is Darwin, and more particularity the daggy Palms Motel, where the guests are trapped by marauding crocodiles.

Director Samantha Young elicits suitably wacky performances from the terrific comic cast. Ainslie McGlynn is wonderful as Renata, the self-obsessed American self-help author (self-help reductio ad absurdum.) Mathew Lee as John, her goofy devotee, delivers a beautiful study of naivete, awkwardness and fixation. Danny Ball as Declan, Renata’s partner, is a giggle-inducing self-important hypocrite. Running the motel is Flick, in Zoe Jensen’s delightful portrait of the parochial local. Aiding her is Leilani Lau’s Bobbi, a kindly kook who provides plenty of laughs with Lau’s perfect delivery of Falkner’s malapropisms.

I call the piece a puzzle because I had difficulty seeing the connection between the different strands. (Of course, being a writer of theatre criticism, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.) I’m not sure why Declan was Irish (though I am familiar with the stereotype informing the decision to make the other two interlopers American.) I also didn’t understand the meaning of the motif that Declan could smell blood (that is, to the degree usually attributed to sharks, rather than their distant cousins, the Irish.) Similarly, what actually had happened to the sisters’ mother began as a mystery and, for me, remained one to the end. I’m not sure why Bobbi kept a wild rat in a cage (though it might’ve been a substitute for her missing husband, who was a despicable love rat.) I don’t know why Flick suffered from something akin to narcolepsy.

Perhaps the last of these puzzles hints at the solution to the rest: faced with climate catastrophe (the sort that drives crocodiles out of their natural habitats and to the streets) these quirky characters are all asleep – and so the whole thing functions as a crazy, oddball satire on myopia.

Paul Gilchrist

Darwin’s Reptilia by Charlie Falkner

at Downstairs Belvoir (as part of 25A) until 26 November

belvoir.com.au

Image by Phil Erbacher

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The Italians

28 Oct

Danny Ball’s The Italians is a fast and furious farce. It’s gloriously silly, and gleefully subversive.

The Italians are Australians. This is contemporary Sydney.

Director Riley Spadoro elicits fantastic comic performances from the entire cast. Here’s a few highlights. Teenage Maria, played by Amy Hack, delivers a dance number that is absolute gold, and not just because of the lamé outfit. Similarly, her love affair with Mikey the plumber, played by Philip D’Ambrosio, is brilliant bogan bombast. Doubling as elderly Giuseppina, D’Ambrosio in walking frame, holding court at the Catholic Club, handing out prescription drugs like homemade biscotti, is hilarious. Emma O’Sullivan as Patrizia, the Italian visiting from Italy, is delightfully audacious, and her turn as the Virgin Mary is miraculous. The two gay lovers, played by Ball and Brandon Scane, and cousin Luca, played by Nic English, are very funny and very real.   

Ball’s play is an exciting, intelligent and much needed interrogation of the concept of identity. As Maria says to her brother “Everybody’s gay now. Or at least queer. So you’re not special.” Who am I? is a question that resists definitive answer, at least when asked by a human being. But there are many reasons why we might assert an answer to that question – not all of them either wise or good.

The Italians challenges monolithic visions of what it is to be “Italian” in contemporary Australia. It does this through its playful awareness of stereotypes. It does it through the ongoing dispute as to the status of being Sardinian, Sicilian or Milanese. (Will the real Italian please stand up?) It does it through an onstage visit by Albo, the Australian prime minister with an Italian father. It does it when the only actual Italian character in the play screams at the rest You’re not Italian! And then there’s the absurdity of Ozzie. In a parody perfect portrayal by Deborah Galanos, decked in green, gold and uggies, sporting a blonde mullet, Ozzie complains he felt marginalised at his multicultural high school. It induces tears – of laughter.  And then there’s the end, which I can’t reveal because of the spoiler rule. Let’s just say it’s a mischievous invitation to consider who it is that constructs identities and asserts they are “realities”, and what they hope to gain.

Paul Gilchrist

The Italians by Danny Ball

Downstairs Belvoir, as part of 25A, until 6 Nov

belvoir.com.au

Image by Katherine Griffiths

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Son of Byblos

9 May

This is exciting premiere Australian work, and Belvoir’s 25A and Brave New Word should be congratulated.

Though new work, I’ve had the privilege of reading the script in an earlier incarnation; in 2019, when it was shortlisted for the Silver Gull Play Award.

This is not the same play, though it’s a close kissing cousin. James Elazzi’s engaging story of a young gay man living in a community reluctant to accept homosexuality has morphed since I first read it. It has opened up, and is now an ambiguous, provocative piece of theatre.

And though I’ve been fortunate enough to see brief glimpses of this stimulating work in its development, I’m still very distant from it.

An initial response might be to bristle at potential anachronisms. Is the Lebanese Australian Christian community still in denial? Do young members of this community still engage in duplicitous behaviour in order to protect themselves? I have absolutely no idea.

Which posits the interesting question: Is the role of the playwright to document society? And, if so, what technical and moral attributes would be required of them to do this effectively? And what sort of awareness, both in terms of aesthetics and epistemology, would the audience of such a work need? Watching a play like this, do I say “Well, that’s the Lebanese Australian Christian community” or do I postpone judgement, counting this play as merely the equivalent of a single anecdote from someone I assume is an insider?

In the play, the young protagonist, Adam, has sexual encounters with strangers in public toilets. This is a powerful image of marginalisation and the reckless desperation it engenders. Curiously, these are the only moments in the production not presented in a naturalist mode: the actor stands alone on stage simulating a sexual act, while all sound is pre-recorded and the other male participant is physically absent. Is it the anomalous nature of this act in Adam’s otherwise conventional life that is being suggested? Probably – because it’s not especially suggestive of sex. Are contemporary audiences not ready for more vivid representations of this type of anonymous sex? See my earlier comments on anachronism.  

Director Anna Jahjah has elicited wonderful performances from her cast, each presenting an individual wrenched in opposing directions, torn by the desire to reject their community’s unpalatable demands while simultaneously longing to hold that community together. Mansoor Noor’s Adam is a brilliantly complex portrayal of a young man morally disfigured by pain, a protagonist who evokes equal parts sympathy and antipathy.  Adam’s treatment of the two young women in his life is disturbing to watch. His cousin Claire also attempts to navigate the communal myopia, and Kate Bookallil plays her with both a thrilling waspishness and intense vulnerability. Angela, Adam’s ex-girlfriend, seeks sense and security in all the duplicity and deliberate obtuseness, with Violette Ayad’s fascinating portrayal endowing her with both dignity and fragility. Deborah Galanos plays Adam’s mother, Carol, with a performance balanced delicately between vivacity and anger. Simon Elrahi’s John is frustrated paternal expectation engaged in a gripping battle with loving acceptance.

Social documentation? The eternal challenge of individuality within community? Go and choose.

Paul Gilchrist

Son of Byblos by James Elazzi

Downstairs Belvoir until 21st May

belvoir.com.au

photo credit @davidhooley

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