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The City
Date of Show:
Friday, 3rd September 2010 (All day)
Venue:
2 Chapel Street St Kilda As exchanges between a dysfunctional couple, their next door neighbour and an unexplained child become increasingly surreal, an apocalyptic 'city of the mind' is revealed.
On Friday I saw “The City,” by Martin Crimp, presented by Red Stitch Actors Theatre. This independent professional company, performing at their eponymous venue tucked behind a church on Chapel Street, offers a hospitable experience. There is free catering, and their theatre gives every convenience. Although the space is fairly tiny the use of it is practical, and there is a good atmosphere
.
“The City” is a chilling and sardonic essay on the emptiness of middle-class urban life. Playwright Martin Crimp really takes the medium of theatre in both hands and does something confronting with it. This play twists audience expectations, and creates wonder and confusion. This well-cast production, directed by Adena Jacobs, is the Victorian premiere of the work.
“The City” is British in origin. It is hard to categorize it as either comedy or drama, but a very dark and twisted humour runs through it. It is probably best described as mystery with a touch of surrealism. It is the story of Christopher and Clair, a middle-class couple living in the city who purposefully protect their tender emotions from each other. They have a strange marriage that is more like a game, with layer upon layer of spite. Trapped hopes and dreams scarcely take flight as the couple exist in a bleak emotional wasteland.There is no resounding admission of a failed marriage. Instead they live on a superficial plane. This play is an obvious comment on couples who marry, and then, when their marriages disintegrate, feel they cannot say anything about it because of the old-fashioned belief that if someone has made their own bed, they must lie in it. Not a very common view in the western world nowadays, but it was once. This play implies that that view is, perhaps, still alive and well in some circles of the upper class.
Clair is an idealistic translator who dreams of a better world. Christopher has just lost his corporate job. Clair shows a little more warmth than Christopher at the beginning. At least she, to a certain extent, is in touch with love. Christopher, at first, comes across as an unmoved man with a cool sense of humour. As the play progresses, though, he unravels. His erratic and delusional persona begins to surface. It becomes clear that his mind-boggling anxieties and neuroses, and the toll that unemployment has taken on him, make him a much deeper character than at first apparent.
There is little happiness in their world except self-satisfaction, and the occasional solace Clair takes from her fantasy world. Only when the outside world, in the form of neighbour Jenny, enters the house, do husband and wife stand together as a couple. Jenny is teetering on the brink of hysteria, reflecting Christopher’s own state of mind. Jenny claims that in her field of work, which is nursing, she often sees people “clinging to life.” There is the strong inference in the play, through metaphors, that a lot of these apparently complaceant middle-class people are just “clinging to life,” too.
Their estrangement becomes more complete as Clair becomes attached to the unseen character Mohammed, a famous writer. Jenny continues to visit, behaving more and more strangely. Their daughter reveals herself a couple of times. Here we face the horrible fact of a child being raised in a bleak environment of emotional confusion and crystallized love. Finally, over a miserable Christmas when the visiting Jenny goes right round the bender, the reason for everyone’s strange behaviour- or at least part of it- is explained. The play asks- how much is real? When you are making it hard for your loved ones to communicate with you, and acting as a caricature of yourself, then how much is left that is real?The set was intriguing. The front section of the stage, which was very narrow, was apparently supposed to represent a garden. Most of the stage was separated from it by a door and a glass wall. You could see some of the “house” through this- part of a lobby, a piano, a staircase. It was tantalizing to wonder what was going on in the rest of their home. The glass wall was symbolic in the division it created between husband and wife. The sound, designed by Jared Lewis, was atmospheric and well-timed.
The part of Clair was played by Fiona Mcleod. Mcleod looked the part, with her delicate features and elegant restraint. Mcleod played the only really calm character, and it was an interesting performance. She played a character in crisis, yet able to play off against her husband and the terrible factors surrounding her. Meredith Penman gave an enthusiastic and ultimately haunting performance as Jenny, the girl who seems at the mercy of her own racing thoughts.
Dion Mills was powerful as Christopher. His presence was imposing and charismatic as he switched between hysteria and dry British humour. The role of the girl, the couple’s only child, is shared by Georgie Hawkins and Fantine Banulski. The actress playing the part when I saw it was Hawkins. This actress has a very strong presence. It is just as well the quality of her work is high, because her material was dark and intense.
At the end of “The City,” after all the games that have been played, there is a surprising revelation. Of course, I’m not going to say what it is! To do so would ruin the point of the play. This topsy-turvy work, full of false clues and confusing leads, keeps building up your expectations and then demolishing them. For theatre sophisticates.
State:
VIC