Sydney Reviews

Left - Caroline Brazier. Cover - Blazey Best. Photos - Danielle Lyons.

A romantic image of travel and domesticity: brown cardboard suitcases, a basket of unfolded laundry, stacks of newspapers tied with straw coloured rope surrounded by pale yellow rose buds litter the stage. Six actors line up against a back wall of mirrors- like that of a police interrogation. It begins...

Direct address from an ensemble of actors. An exploration of the art of story, narratology. An introduction to a story - a preamble to prepare and a proposition. This soft, self-aware entry into this play is well understood in Australian theatre. It is a start which opens up a large world - a reassurring voice which asks us to listen, to engage - to embrace the structure the tone, the forms as they are presented. This voiced start which examines its own sense of starting - its own voice - its own sense does not patronize but prepare us. This is a play of heightened theatricality: a simple static stage design and shape-shifting/voice shifting actors for this exploration of transmogrification, evolution, enlightenment.

A nun, a drag queen and a pregnant woman stand on a train station platform. United by the promise of a 6:45pm train. Sounds like the premise of a joke - and the play will declare that to you - just as you make the connection. This isn't a joke but a reality which seems unlikely yet conceivable. We see the moments which lead them to this place. This time. We see the things that link them - a bag, a book, a gun. Waiting is filled with numbed expectation - time moves on as they stand motionless. We are told what they notice. A nun reads a subscriber-only erotic fiction. A drag queen tells the story of his drag bag. A pregnant woman tells the tousle of transport with her protective husband. A young woman enters the railway station, on a holy mission. In one moment everything is changed utterly.

Jonathan Gavin's script is simply, incredible. Tightly woven are the stories of migrant families, religious identities, domestic relationships, sexual politics, science, philosophy, history, literature... into twenty-one characters played by six actors - who span ages, roles, ethnicities, faiths, sexual persuasions. It forms a rich contemporary portrait, like that of the Bayeux tapestry of the political/religious war which is waged in the world. This war is not the one of sand and snipers and exit strategies. There is something more terrifying than this. The war in this play is worse - the silent terror of our own thoughts and beliefs and the actions they invoke.

Beautifully crafted scenes in which it is impossible to remain loyal to any one character, Gavin has exposed the fragility and the violence in us as a nation. What is truly disturbing and enlightening about this production is the realisation that the most brutal of our destructive tendencies come from a place of love, hope and idealism. Everything that needs to be said about our understanding of religious extremism - of guilt, of love, of blame, of anger or human ugliness, of righteousness - is said in an honest, breath takingly beautiful way.

Kim Hardwick's direction is taut, masterfully handling the tender heart and the rigourous mind of this play, and is perfectly paced and beautifully balanced. The ensemble of actors, Blazey Best, Caroline Brazier, Ivan Donato, Tony Poli, Wendy Stehlow and Damien Rice are impeccable as they wing and transform between perpetrator and victim, from victim to monster. No one outshines - they illuminate each other in what is an exquisitely cohesive ensemble experience: drawing to the fore the message of unity and our connectedness through our human experience.

Many playwrights have tried to write this play, tried to say what it is saying, tried to ask of us what it is asking - but it is Jonathan Gavin who has succeeded with Bang. This is one of the most moving, beautiful, important, tender, remarkable, intelligent, perfect plays of contemporary Australian theatre and must be seen because it will at once elevate, interrogate, inspire our understanding of the world and each other.


White Box and B Sharp present
Bang
by Jonathan Gavin

Directed Kim Hardwick

Venue: Downstairs, Belvoir St Theatre, 25 Belvoir St
Dates: 10 Jun - 4 Jul, 2010
Times: Tuesdays 7.00pm, Wednesday - Saturday 8.15pm, Sundays 5.15pm
Tickets: Full Price $32, Industry $24, Concession $24
Bookings: 02 9699 3444 | www.belvoir.com.au