 Left - Anna
Lise Phillips. Cover - Anna
Lise Phillips & Jack Finsterer
Stunningly staged in a small
cube of a set, Don’t say the Words
is a retelling of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon in a contemporary
context. This is Tasmanian playwright Tom Holloway’s latest
work and comes direct from its debut season at Griffin Theatre in Sydney.
A woman and a man are in a
bathroom, complete with dingy toilet, bath and washing machine, the
walls tiled in black. She’s telling a story about her husband
coming home from the army. He’s been gone a long time and he’s
tattooed her name on his fist. She greets him, offers him the
head of the table at the family barbecue, but he’s angry. He
hits her, half kills her, accuses her of being with another man. She reacts....
As the woman tells this story her lover makes corrections, suggestions;
and the events change as she refines her narrative. Is her husband the brute
she describes? Or is she looking for an excuse to kill him so she can be with her lover? We get
the same story told from different points of view, with characters
talking in the third person as though to emphasise
that these are stories. Crimes are being contemplated. The stories may remain stories, or they might
be enacted, made flesh (“In the beginning was the word…”). In the telling, there’s a chance to pre-empt guilt, to examine motivations,
and to lay out the case for action.
The woman is played by Anna
Lise Phillips with a wry knowingness interspersed with moments of numbing
pain. As the husband, Jack Finsterer is full of suppressed, blind emotion. Brett
Stiller, as the hapless lover, brings some much-needed levity, his uncertainty
and vulnerability making his the most relatable character of the trio.
The woman of course is a version
of Clytaemnestra, but she’s no longer the heartless wife who murders
out of revenge. She’s more innocent here, more subtle
– or is she? Her lover, in fact her husband’s cousin, and
an amusing example of Aussie larrikinism as played by Stiller, wants
what she wants. But he has his own reasons for resenting his “best
mate”.
There’s an entertaining scene
where the two friends share a few beers in front of the big screen at
the pub, with a poisonous undercurrent to their charming drunken banter. This is the essence of Tom Holloway’s retelling: what is at the heart of relationships between men? Real love –
or buried jealousy, dominance, rebellion? When one is strong (a
king, in the original story) the other must be weak. Can real
friendship exist on such a basis? Does power negate love?
And what about within marriage? The husband here, as in Agamemnon, has chosen war over his wife
and, it is hinted, forced her into a painful sacrifice. Again, a power imbalance; and where one partner holds all the cards,
is it any wonder that bitterness simmers and boils over? The question
of this production (and no doubt for Aeschylus a couple of thousand
years ago) is: can we hold onto our humanity in the face of victimisation? Even righteous anger should not necessarily be acted upon.
In a moment of endearing confusion the
lover accuses himself of being a monster because he once fantasised
about killing a sheep. He convinces himself that being able
to imagine such a thing means that his basic nature is violent, so no
there’s no point in trying to curb himself. The woman reminds him that imagining is not the same as doing. This play is about
the space between the word and the act; and it’s up to the audience
to work out where the characters ultimately find themselves.
The production is tightly directed
by Matthew Lutton with scarcely a wasted moment. It’s a physical
piece of theatre, visceral and energised, with a sense of danger. The clever set design by Adam Gardner adds to the claustrophobia
and, combined with the lighting design by Paul Jackson, all flickering
fluoros and dim melancholy, we get a setting that feels real, suburban
even, and yet can be suddenly nightmarish. It’s the
terror of the familiar, the stuff of great horror films. This
effect is enhanced by the potent, and at times overwhelming, sound design
by Kelly Ryall and the use of popular songs, which serve as banal barometers
to the character’s inner states.
I can’t help but be reminded
of The Boys, both in terms of this restrained Gothic style and
in terms of the subject matter. Of course the screen version featured
Anna Lise Phillips and the original stage production of the play came
out of Griffin Theatre, so there is a connection. Both plays are
about the dark underbelly of the masculine, but Don’t Say the Words has a central thread of feminine rage. The structure
of the writing may be a little elliptical for some tastes, and seems
sometimes guilty at times of obfuscation, but this is fresh and vibrant
theatre and represents a rare convergence of talent.
The Tasmanian Theatre Company and Griffin Theatre Company proudly present
Don’t Say The Words
by Tom Holloway
Venue: Backspace Theatre, Theatre Royal
Dates: July 31 – August 28 2008
Times:
Tuesdays to Thursdays at 8.15pm; Fridays at 6.15pm and 9.15pm; Saturdays at 2.15pm and 8.15pm
Bookings: Theatre Royal Box Office on (03) 6233 2299 or online at www.tastheatre.com
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