Sydney Reviews

There’s nothing glacial about the pace of New Theatre’s production of Bess Wohl’s Continuity. Under Sahn Millington’s brisk direction, the show is a scarper flow of eighty minutes, a time warp skate over thin ice.

On the set of a big-budget Hollywood eco-thriller, the clock is ticking for an on time and under budget wrap. Successful completion together with a highly anticipated box office will enable Maria, the director, to write her own ticket in Tinsel town.

The film’s finale is proving a problem though, ping ponging between prima donna meltdown, scientific fact colliding with storytelling license, and studio interference.

Time is running out on every level – film completion, a crew member’s terminal diagnosis and the parlous state of the planet. Careers, lives and the very future of human existence teeter on the brink of catastrophe and egos as fragile as the Earth’s ecology threaten to turn the project into an economic calamity.

Michelle Robin Anderson brings Maria, the film’s director and the play’s emotional fulcrum, to life with an impassioned empathy and pragmatism, placating her star actress with eggshell ego massage while trying to capture the drama and real-world gravitas within a tight schedule and budgetary constraints.

Jessica Joseph-McDermott nails the actress, Nicole, a chilly grace with a pretty face and pony tail, the hair style a point of contention that literally alludes to the play’s title.

Another bone of contention for Maria is the sway of the film’s screenwriter, David Caxton, nicely nuanced by Nick Curnow. Maria is suspicious that he is a studio stooge and his support suspect. It’s a relationship complicated by the fact they were once lovers, although there is a continuity of affection evident.

The role of the on-set scientific advisor, Laurie, provides a scene stealing opportunity for Susan Jordan and pinch it she does, delivering a sobering analysis that concentrates on the ethical implications of the play’s theme in a sliver of Shavian didacticism.

Cast and crew members of the shoot are impeccably peopled by Andrew Mclaughlin and Sarah Nader as Nicole’s co-stars, Julie Quinn as the harried PA, Noah Rayner as the passive aggressive first AD, and Sora Wakaki as the ever-patient camera operator.

David Marshall-Martin’s impressive set design serves as both fake film set and nuanced metaphor of the inconvenient truth of the narrative, while lighting designer, Julian Dunne, further enhances this liminal space right up to the play’s anticlimactic end.