Photos – Amanda JamesBrave and audacious, National Theatre of Parramatta launches its inaugural season with an equally brave and audacious play, Swallow by Steph Smith.
Starting a new theatre company is brave, but the courage of National Theatre of Parramatta convictions are, happily, augmented by financial support of the New South Wales State Government, Parramatta City Council, and Riverside Theatres, of which National Theatre of Parramatta becomes resident company.
The audacity of the name, National Theatre of Parramatta, is provocative but in step with the grand vision of being Australia’s next great city and the heart of Global Sydney.
The choice of the name could be seen as jokey or pretentious, but this production is seriously assured and can genuinely boast its achievements.
In choosing to stage Swallow, the company has not taken the easy option of delivering a crowd pleasing night at the theatre. It is a tough, terrifying, complex and conflicting play that demands attention. And this production is palpably arresting.
Anna Tregloan’s off-white brick tiled set evokes both modern minimalist urban habitat and cold, isolated detachment. Multiple strands of taut fishing line delineating the “invisible” fourth wall, corralling the three female characters within the space.
Verity Hampson’s forensic lighting brilliantly augments and compliments the set, the fishing line picking up glints and flashes that are beautiful, ethereal and a little bit dangerous.
Director Kate Champion, an accomplished choreographer, fuses the physical and the psychological with a remarkable fluidity, defining the confinement of the characters but deftly leading them to their liberation.
The performances are thrilling.
Valerie Berry is sensational as Sam, a person with a PhD in picking at her life. Born Samantha in the body of a woman, Sam is desperate and determined to pick her own person out of her gender trap, to mattock the male from the scrub of her sexual reassignment. Flattening her chest with gaffer tape – her father said there's nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of gaffer – she ventures out into the world to showcase her real identity and gets smashed up by a gang of blokes testosterone tanked with talk of teams and tits.
Sam does attract the attentions of Rebecca, played with brittle brilliance by Megan Drury. Rebecca, recently dumped by her boyfriend, heart broken and self harming, whose frustrated hell hath no fury is self-scorning. In spite of herself, she sits among the smashed crockery and shattered glassware, “the collected “fuckuppery” of her existence”.
The extraordinary Luisa Hastings Edge is Anna, upstairs neighbour of Rebecca, a hermit who hasn’t ventured out in years and is now doing a demolition of her surroundings, physically taking a hammer to her hermitage, busting through walls, floors and ceilings.
Swallow is a smashing production – quite literally – and at base, is about three women renovating their lives. A remarkable makeover in ninety minutes, Swallow is a refurb with reverb.
National Theatre of Parramatta presents
Swallow
by Stef Smith
Directed by Kate Champion
Venue: Riverside Theatres | Cnr Church & Market Sts Parramatta
Dates: 21 – 30 April 2016
Bookings: riversideparramatta.com.au
