Footprints on Water is a claustrophobic play. Set in a small town that people seem cursed to live in and cursed to never leave, it is a dark, ominous, and sometimes blackly funny look at religion, hysteria, hypocrisy, cruelty, identity, racism, beginnings, ends, and the apocalypse. Matt Cameron's script is clever, pointed, often poetic, and regularly tangibly disturbing.
The show has six characters: Noel (Bendeguz Devenyi-Botos), an evangelical Christian boot-maker, determined to make an ark so he can sail away when the floods come; his simple-minded apprentice Errol (Adam Penklis); prostitute who does not sleep with her customers Edie (Kate Halsted); town mad woman Agnes (Solange Fauvet); and wife of the local brothel owner, Lena (Victoria Allen). Over these five looms the dark menace that is brothel owner Gunther (David Halgren), a cruel, hateful man in the manner of the Westboro Baptist Church. Nominally Christian, he thrives on hatred so much that he purposefully involves himself with people he hates: foreigners, gay men, and women.
Matt Cameron's script borders on being a little too gratuitous at times - he achieves with onstage sex and violence that which might have also been chillingly achieved with words - but there are moments in it which I found reminiscent of Simon Stone's Thyestes, sickening moments of horror that makes you feel like you've been punched. I won't spoil it, but there are scenes where Gunther and Errol are on stage together where I wanted to cover my eyes. The way Cameron's script exposes hypocrisy, cruelty, and religious hysteria is remarkable. For example, Gunther's best friend is Noel, the holy man, who resides in the church on the hill. Despite all the tenets of his religion that ask him to be kind to others, to do unto them as he would have them do unto him, Noel loathes the heathen people of the village and isolates himself from them, and will not look them in the eye in an effort to keep himself pure. Religiosity is something that infects the play like a disease, reflected in the festering wound on Gunther's foot.
There were elements I liked less - the sacred virgin/sacred prostitute character that was Edie, for example, who was determined to experience the darker side of life and desire but rather had experiences happen to her than experience things herself - but on the whole, this is a brilliant script. It has a real Gothic sense of claustrophobia, of being trapped, and when the floods rise to wash the town away, I was glad: at last, maybe, these people could be free. The show was very ably performed by the cast of six. They started a little nervously - perhaps a case of opening night jitters - and ploughed so quickly through the opening scenes that it almost got away from them, but once they settled down, they did a fine job. Particular commendations go to Halgren's Gunther, who was genuinely chilling.
The only other comment I would make is about the lighting. It was regularly used to signify scene changes, and I think it was overused - a lot of them could be done simply with movement. A lot of the scenes were short and the lighting changes tended to break the flow of the piece. Otherwise, Footprints on Water is a great show: haunting, dark, and moving. Make sure you get along to this one.
Actors Not Feelers presents
Footprints on Water
By Matt Cameron
Venue: The New Theatre, King Street, Newtown
Dates: 17 - 23 September, 2012
Bookings: 2012.sydneyfringe.com
