The result is acting taut with repressed anxiety and primed for a reflex counterpunch at any hint of Russia-bashing or oversimplification, and it changes gear as the play hurtles towards a suspenseful twist. The rise of overt discrimination against queer people in Putin’s Russia was enshrined long before the country lurched into the disaster of war, but Livesey’s character doesn’t have the luxury of escape and the dangers of telling his story are all too real. Livesey also carries the emotional freight of someone who has tasted – rather than merely gabbed about – the grim experience of oppression. There’s a convincing erotic charge propelling awkward courtship scenes, and whenever King’s babe in the woods hijacks the moment with some opinionated sincerity about the lack of LGBTI+ rights in Russia, Livesey saves it with a dash of sardonic humour. Amid vodka and party drugs, the night turns from seduction to unbridled hedonism, traumatic backstory is revealed, and the rules of the game shift as ulterior motives come to light.Ĭameron’s muscular script gives the actors plenty to work with. Reviewed by Cameron WoodheadĪn Australian tourist (Wil King) meets a charismatic stranger (Patrick Livesey) offering to be his guide to the Russian capital. Despite well-honed set pieces – verbal duelling between two diametrically opposed sisters, say – the portrayal of family conflict doesn’t have a sustained ring of authenticity, and feels out of scale next to the ecological catastrophe that dominates the play’s vision. The script meanders too often into grim description pace flags. She can’t help but cling to delusions of rebuilding, even as an oppressive sense of dystopia gathers force – largely through bleak triumphs of design – and an inevitable exodus bears down upon her. Sibling rivalry erupts between the estranged sisters from the outset, and the tussle between the Eva’s cynicism and Lily’s tormented hope heightens as the latter discloses an ulterior motive for her visit.Īs Eva, Chanella Macri generates a brooding fury that swells into savage soliloquy: her case against having children overpowers Brigid Gallacher’s desperate maternal instinct (in an admittedly underwritten part).Įmily Tomlins’ ageing Maggie swings between the poles her daughters adopt, relating her own experiences of motherhood. Maggie and her two adult daughters Eva and Lily (Brigid Gallacher) reunite at their burnt-out family farm. It’s less rugged than The View From Up Here, which takes place among ashen desolation in a bushfire’s destructive aftermath.
True, some performances stray into overacting when the stakes are raised, and I’m not sure the way Fleur Murphy entwines family strife and bushfire crisis intensifies either, though the bleak ambiguity of the play’s ending lingers in the mind. The cast features some well-known television actors, and the characters are drawn with brisk conviction. Affectionately daggy domestic humour careers into melodrama when a secret kept by Tom and Matthew’s parents (Geoff Paine and Carole Patullo) gets revealed. When Matthew brings his artsy partner Abby (Sonya Suares) to Tom’s 18th birthday, there’s a comedic clash of city and country manners. Brothers Matthew (Martin Blum) and Tom (Kurt Pimblett) are a generation apart in age and don’t have much in common, but Matthew’s standoffishness eases into poignancy as Tom goes off the rails and needs a mentor. Hearth takes us to country Victoria on the eve of the Black Saturday bushfires. Both can struggle, too, to mix domestic soap, issue play and more lyrical fare into something dramatically coherent. Both are set against the charred landscape of a country aflame, each beginning wreathed in stage haze. Yet the eerie similarity of these plays doesn’t stop there.īoth excursions into “cli-fi” (aka climate fiction) feature family dramas focused on reproductive issues – surrogacy in The View From Up Here, adoption in Hearth. Perhaps it isn’t so odd that, after an election decided partly by mounting support for climate change action, there should be two shows about bushfires opening in the same week.