Those Who Fall in Love like Anchors Dropped Upon the Ocean Floor is a substantial title for a play that's a trifle.Playwright Finegan Kruckmeyer has fashioned a flimsy, naive narrative of staggered vignettes, about love, unrequited love, same sex attraction, lost love, and the love of shooting.
It begins with a Parisian watchmaker, an hororologist who doesn’t just like to make and repair watches, he likes to watch. Instead of making faces all day, he philosophises on timing, how a fraction of a second can make all the difference between life and death and love. One upon a time he says and we are introduced to the characters of the various vignettes.
Two hunters out in the boonies of the United States, a male and female, and a not so subtle foray into shootin' as a foreplay to rootin'. Aw shucks. Two Russian female submariners and their “We sail into Armageddon” sprouting captain. Enough to put these girls off seamen forever. An unrequited lesbian love between workmates. And, the piece de resistance, a disastrous first date scenario, that is genuinely funny and its undisputed highlight. If only the whole 75 minutes had been given over to them.
Performers Jo Morris, Renee Newman and Ben Mortley are a pleasant company and have fun articulating the accumulation of accents, but again, work best when they are using their own.
India Mehta set design of a revolve has a nautical porthole and seat and tables that morph from submarine mess hall to restaurant to sniper's lair in a nano. She dresses the girls in stripey t shirt – perfect for both Parisienne chics and Russian matelots.
Ben Collins sound design has the appropriate tick tock and sonar.
There is excessive and unnecessary use of cigarettes, and most of the stories in Those Who Fall in Love like Anchors Dropped Upon the Ocean Floor sink like a stone in the muddy waters of the dramaturgy.
Jo Morris, Renée Newman and Griffin Independent present
Those Who Fall in Love Like Anchors Dropped Upon the Ocean Floor
by Finegan Kruckemeyer
Director Adam Mitchell
Venue: SBW Stables Theatre | 10 Nimrod Street, Kings Cross NSW
Dates: 23 July – 6 August 2016
Tickets: $38 – $30
Bookings: griffintheatre.com.au | 02 9361 3817
