Sydney Reviews

Ai-yi-yi! Nicholas Kazan's Blood Moon, in its Australian premiere, is by no means a bad play. At least, it needn't be. But, regrettably (and much as it pains me to say it), in this incarnation from Unpathed Theatre Company, it could easily be mistaken for one. Unpathed it may be. Unscathed, it's not. Christopher Stollery, who directs, is currently putting in a very creditable performance in a two-hander at the Ensemble, but his chops telling actors where to stand need some trimming, to put it politely.

On paper, this psychological drama (for which the writer is well-known) has it all. Based on a chillingly true story, it deals in power, rape and revenge.

Manya (Victoria Beck) is only 19. A student, staying with her uncle, Gregory (Fabrizio Omodei), who's busy showing her the sights. 'Little' girl. Big city. We join them as their day winds down, as they arrive at the apartment of Gregory's, ah, friend, man-about-town, Alan (Ted Crosby). Alan and Manya hit it off, and are intellectually well-matched. But when the coldly opportunistic, Machiavellian Alan puts the hard word on Gregory, over whom he seems to exercise some apparently inexplicable influence, to leave him alone with Manya, rapport and banter turns to rape and brutality.

Fast-forward a year, to Manya's apartment, in which the tables are turned. It could almost be Hitchcock. It's haunting and suspenseful. Or would be, if it could be. But it really can't be. Firstly, it's substantially miscast. Ted Crosby doesn't really do sartorially slick in the manner requisite of a millionaire playboy type. His awkwardness and stiffness is palpable and any propensities towards snappy dialogue, on the page, are reduced to anxiety, on the stage. The best we can assume is that Alan may be on crack cocaine, or something. Crosby fails to convincingly carry the arrogance of his character; despite his valiant attempts to sustain an abject lack of likeability, it looks forced, as if he's trying to lay an egg. Unhappily, Crosby can't do suave, try as he might. At least, he couldn't, in this context.

Tom Bannerman's set design isn't much help to Crosby's image. What's supposed to be a flash apartment is reduced to a dingy bachelor pad. While I appreciate he was probably grappling with a juggernaut budget of approximately nil, miracles are oft-performed with shoestrings. Rabbits are pulled out of holly hats. It's a trick I've seen time and again.

Beck is better, but (almost inevitably, since their interaction is so conjoined) buys into the stylised, hyperreal delivery that grates like a, well, grater. And she can't do distress. At least, she couldn't, in this context. That fact alone demeans and devalues Kazan's work. Lucky he wasn't there to see it.

Omodei, of the three, is the only one that manages any kind of naturalness; but it's a relative thing, and he still looks as if he's working up a sweat in the attempt. And that's just the point, really. If you have to attempt naturalness, it can never really be present. And it's needed so much here. After all, Kazan's piece is based on a true story. So, to have actors going for I don't know what (they seem like being from another planet introducing us to a new school of drama) is bizarre; to say nothing of aggravating, in the extreme.

Tragedy and darkness pervades every corner of this play, which Stollery and cohorts have diminished to vacuous melodrama. As but one example of opportunities knocking with none opening the door more than a crack to invite them in, the sadness and sympathy that should be awakened by Manya's backstory (both parents killed, suddenly, in an accident) is dropped like a hot potato. The hold Alan has on his 'friend', Gregory, is trivialised and dealt with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. What ought and deserves to be a thoroughly horrifying, palpitating, edge-of-the-seat, white-knuckled final scene (for actors and audience both) is diluted from hydrochloric acid to H2O.

Nicholas Kazan's Blood Moon, in its Australian premiere, is by no means a bad play. At least, it needn't be. Enough said. (Ay-yi-yi!)


Unpathed Theatre Company presents
Blood Moon
by Nicholas Kazan

Directed by Christopher Stollery

Venue: Tap Gallery | 278 Palmer Street Darlinghurst, NSW
Dates: 8 – 16 February 2013
Tickets: $30 – $25
Bookings: unpathed.com.au/buy-tickets