The Greater Plague
writer and director: Nic Dorward
starring: Jonathan Brand, Louise Brehmer, Morgan French, Saskia Levy and Emily Tomlins
venue: Metro Arts Theatre
Before we go any further, I want to put on the record my support for new theatre writing. It’s just that, in my opinion, far too many plays have made their way into mainstream venues before they’re ready for paying audiences or even freeloading critics.
Metro Arts’ commendable Independents program allows emerging artists to present their work in a real theatre to real theatregoers. That presents both an opportunity for their work to be seen, and a responsibility to make it worth seeing.
The latest offering, The Greater Plague, is presented by the Restaged Histories Project, a group with its stated mission to “combine vintage stories with modern storytelling”.
Playwright and director Nic Dorward presupposes his audience has a working knowledge of the 17th century London plague. If your history isn’t up to snuff, or you haven’t read some of the press coverage about the play, you’re starting from behind. The program isn’t any help.
The story concerns two French girls – Lettice (Morgan French) and Edith (Saskia Levy) – who find their way into a plague-ridden London house, where they, along with a pregnant Theophilia (Emily Tomlins), are then trapped by its creepy inhabitants (Jonathan Brand and Louise Brehmer). It’s all in the interests of public health, to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.
Because the play starts somewhere in the middle, then jumps backwards and forwards – from a heightened realism to the surrealistic, via some unnecessary and time-consuming tableaux – it’s hard to get a grip on the story beyond that.
Indeed, I could almost see the light bulb over the head of a woman sitting near me when she belatedly came to the important realisation that one of the French girls couldn’t speak English.
Perhaps Dorward should have borrowed from television’s ’Allo ’Allo!, where the English is heavily accented when the
characters are speaking French. The solution here, where Levy spoke as one might to a child, simply got on my nerves.
Also irritating was the crackling soundtrack – probably the fault of the equipment rather than the sound designer, Luke Lickfold, who had some interesting ideas – and the repetitive nature of the direction. Already too long for what it had to say, the play was further prolonged by pointless repetition and an extended side dish of fetishism. Not that the sexual references offended me; they were simply overdone.
What salvages this production, are the performances and the occasional flash of genius – such as the depiction of the foetus growing inside Theophilia, and Kieran Swann’s inspired and functional set that resembled a butcher’s shop.
Brand, whose credits include Queensland Theatre Company’s Mad Hercules and The Orphanage Project – is a fine actor who deserves to be offered more work in the mainstream. Despite their youth, Tomlins and Brehmer are veterans of professional theatre who know their stuff, while French is a potential star of the future.
Yet, at the end of 80 minutes, members of the polite opening-night audience of students, participants’ family members and theatre folk were either left scratching their heads or posturing as if they actually understood that parts of this work were only comprehensible to the author-director and the cast (although, I suspect, even they were in the dark some of the time).
There’s a lot of talent here but despite some moments of pure poetry, not enough depth in the text and not enough discipline in the direction.
starring: Jonathan Brand, Louise Brehmer, Morgan French, Saskia Levy and Emily Tomlins
venue: Metro Arts Theatre
Before we go any further, I want to put on the record my support for new theatre writing. It’s just that, in my opinion, far too many plays have made their way into mainstream venues before they’re ready for paying audiences or even freeloading critics.
Metro Arts’ commendable Independents program allows emerging artists to present their work in a real theatre to real theatregoers. That presents both an opportunity for their work to be seen, and a responsibility to make it worth seeing.
The latest offering, The Greater Plague, is presented by the Restaged Histories Project, a group with its stated mission to “combine vintage stories with modern storytelling”.
Playwright and director Nic Dorward presupposes his audience has a working knowledge of the 17th century London plague. If your history isn’t up to snuff, or you haven’t read some of the press coverage about the play, you’re starting from behind. The program isn’t any help.
The story concerns two French girls – Lettice (Morgan French) and Edith (Saskia Levy) – who find their way into a plague-ridden London house, where they, along with a pregnant Theophilia (Emily Tomlins), are then trapped by its creepy inhabitants (Jonathan Brand and Louise Brehmer). It’s all in the interests of public health, to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.
Because the play starts somewhere in the middle, then jumps backwards and forwards – from a heightened realism to the surrealistic, via some unnecessary and time-consuming tableaux – it’s hard to get a grip on the story beyond that.
Indeed, I could almost see the light bulb over the head of a woman sitting near me when she belatedly came to the important realisation that one of the French girls couldn’t speak English.
Perhaps Dorward should have borrowed from television’s ’Allo ’Allo!, where the English is heavily accented when the
characters are speaking French. The solution here, where Levy spoke as one might to a child, simply got on my nerves.
Also irritating was the crackling soundtrack – probably the fault of the equipment rather than the sound designer, Luke Lickfold, who had some interesting ideas – and the repetitive nature of the direction. Already too long for what it had to say, the play was further prolonged by pointless repetition and an extended side dish of fetishism. Not that the sexual references offended me; they were simply overdone.
What salvages this production, are the performances and the occasional flash of genius – such as the depiction of the foetus growing inside Theophilia, and Kieran Swann’s inspired and functional set that resembled a butcher’s shop.
Brand, whose credits include Queensland Theatre Company’s Mad Hercules and The Orphanage Project – is a fine actor who deserves to be offered more work in the mainstream. Despite their youth, Tomlins and Brehmer are veterans of professional theatre who know their stuff, while French is a potential star of the future.
Yet, at the end of 80 minutes, members of the polite opening-night audience of students, participants’ family members and theatre folk were either left scratching their heads or posturing as if they actually understood that parts of this work were only comprehensible to the author-director and the cast (although, I suspect, even they were in the dark some of the time).
There’s a lot of talent here but despite some moments of pure poetry, not enough depth in the text and not enough discipline in the direction.
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