When artist Rodney Pople debuted his painting “Port Arthur” in 2012 – it won Australia’s most prestigious landscape art prize, the Glover – it was called controversial and confronting. Painted in oil and pigment on linen, the façade of the main prison at Port Arthur sits in the distance – the yellow sandstone the only bright spot under dark clouds, framed by the shadow of a tree. Within this obscuring blackness stands a barely perceptible figure – Martin Bryant, who murdered 35 people at the historic location in 1996. Still Australia’s worst mass shooting, if you forget – as much of the colony does – the genocide of the indigenous population of this country.
The work is
complex, because it captures this landmark in an almost naturalistic way, evocative
of classic oil paintings of Australia’s past, like the work of Frederick
McCubbin. But it imbues it with a sense of foreboding, in honour of past massacres,
the industrial torture of men in the colonial prison, and in remembrance of the
loss of thirty-five people at the hands of a lone gunman. It’s vivid and
striking – and hangs as backdrop to Theatre Works’ new production of Tom Holloway’s
play, Beyond the Neck.
Holloway
describes his work as post-dramatic with narrative fed back in. This play, set
a decade after the tragedy, is often impressionistic: four actors on stage,
reciting monologues that stop and start, as if the characters are trying to remember
their visits to Port Arthur and the pall of tragedy that hangs over that place
and their lives.
One man
(Francis Greenslade), a tour guide, had been there that day. A teenage girl (Cassidy
Dunn) visits to see where her father died. A young boy (Freddy Colyer) is
dragged there by his family, like we’ve all been dragged to tourists spots we
don’t understand the significance of. A mother (Emmaline Carroll Southwell)
hops on a tour bus with a bunch of elderly people, hoping to enjoy the day with
her husband and daughter.
A chamber
piece – the script is divided into two parts “The First Movement” and “The
Second Movement” – is precisely directed by Suzanne Chaundy, whose career has been dominated by Opera. Holloway’s text is lyrical and demanding, the
characters both bouncing off each other and taking focus – literally stopping
each other as their memories spin-off into dreams, fantasy and nightmare.
Chaundy guides the actors through a muscular push-and-pull dance as the
monologues intersect and overlap, creating a fascinating montage of grief and commemoration.
The
ensemble is exquisite, finding a variety of modes for their characters to play
in. For a show that reckons with such an awful piece of modern Australian
history, some of the wry observations and the comedy is sharp or laugh-out-loud
funny. Freddy Colyer’s turn as a seven-year-old who can’t sit still and runs
his mouth a lot is the stand-out, his physicality perfectly capturing youthful vibes
and awkwardness. Francis Greenslade plays the old man tour guide with the right
amount of dad-joke energy, before later having to embody a shattered figure
recounting a day that’s inconceivable to us and to him.
I’ve long
been an admirer of Tom Holloway’s work because of the artfulness of his craft,
but I’d never seen a production of Beyond the Neck – even though it
popped up all over the place, after its debut in 2007. Theatre Works’
production, under the thoughtful direction of Chaundy is remarkable in its
clarity and power.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Beyond the Neck is playing until April 4
Photos: Steven Mitchell Wright
Comments