Acidtongue and Dollface
Written and Directed by Christopher Bryant
Cast: Kristina
Benton – Susan’s Mother, James Cerche – James, Trelawney Edgar – Susan, Christian Hoegh – Susan’s Father
The Owl
and the Pussycat
34 Swan
Street Richmond
10 – 20
January 2013
The stakes were too high for this opening night. The Owl and the Pussycat have been extremely
courageous in their recent offerings and MKA has just treated Melbourne
audiences to a sting of great productions.
So my expectations were high. So
- what follows is an attempt to understand why and what this production is
lacking.
The promo blurb says one thing and the play says something
else. Ambiguity can be intriguing, but
the ambiguity couched in this work is confusing. The inference in the promo material that the
work is a response to the restrictive privilege of growing up in suburbia is
not adequately substantiated.
Acidtongue and
Dollface commences with an interrogation and a counseling session played in
conjunction. This establishes a pervading
dark tortured theme of self-loathing and punishment. We are introduced to the fact there has been
a murder and thence the story works backwards and forwards illustrating
characters and situations but not a clear motive or motives. Something is missing and it is one of those
tricky situations where it is difficult to tell exactly what it is.
Susan (Trelawney
Edgar) is a teenage girl, who’s Mother (Kristina Benton) and Father (Christian Hoegh) have separated. She lives with her mother whom she is nasty
towards and she has just started a new relationship with a lanky teenage boy
named James. The two teenagers go on a
midnight rampage in the burbs and James kills Susan’s mother – but why? It is just not clear.
What is vividly illustrated in this production is the
delusive state of Susan’s mothers mind in respect to rekindling intimacy with
her estranged husband and her self-loathing as she watches signs of aging take
her body over. Therefore her demise takes
on the attributes of a sacrifice. Unexpectedly
this suggests the destruction of a middle-aged, self-loathing, delusional
victim is as the theme of the work.
Which could be partly due to the strength of Christina Benton’s
portrayal of her.
Christopher Bryant has written some strong and poignant
scenes that are entertainingly portrayed.
Two of these are memorably, awkward minutes between Susan’s parents at
the Supermarket and a fabulous scene of using electronic media to communicate -
when a simple conversation would suffice.
But the work does not flow as a whole, lingers unnecessarily on some
interactions. It needs more/some
substantial dramaturgical work, or the eye of a separate director to lift it
out of blandness and confusion. That is
not to say it isn’t interesting and doesn’t have promise but it is not there yet. It is way too introspective to be adequately
dealing with the subject matter of murder, which suggests fear of the material.
Whether I was first night nerves, or not, Susan did not
present as a normal teenager except in the video footage where Trelawney Edgar shone. There was way too much tension in this young
actor’s opening performance to be convincing.
She may be best suited to television acting and could focus her energies
in that direction. James Cerche was more
believable as James - albeit a character lacking motives (as I am sure I have
already said). A more substantially
filled-out, whole person, is the character of Susan’s father, who did come
across as your average bloke with some light and shade.
Awkward costume changes detracted from the atmosphere, which,
could be been better enhanced with more lights for the light design by Emily
Keene.
Suburbia is ruled, over, by self-loathing matriarchs, that
if killed, become the haunting undead that will never let go – so there is no
hope! And maybe everyone should lighten
up and turn this work in to a comic horror play!
It is a really interesting production to think about, and I
am glad I saw it, I think – but so difficult to write about!
Suzanne Sandow
(For Stage Whispers)
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