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The Gift

Submitted by natasha boyd on Wednesday, 8th Jun 2011
TP Rating: 
0
Reviewer: 
Date of Show: 
Thursday, 2nd June 2011 (All day)
Venue: 
Sumner Theatre

Slick, superb, terribly funny and provocative. That accurately sums up MTC’s offering this winter with Joanna Murray-Smith’s The Gift in its larger Sumner theatre space.

 
 Essentially this is a story about marriage, class, art, reward and choices; veteran stage actor Richard Piper plays Ed alongside MTC regular Heather Bolton as his wife Sadie, who travel to a holiday resort for their 25th wedding anniversary and befriend another younger couple, debut MTC performer Elizabeth Debicki in the role of Chloe who is teamed with Matt Dyktynski as her husband of 8 years, Martin. Martin saves Ed’s life whilst the foursome venture out to sea together and Chloe and Martin are asked to think of an appropriate reward, a gift, on the year anniversary. What they ask for and how it plays out turns this witty play into something so much more that you are left thinking about the actions and choices of all the characters long after you’ve left the theatre.   
Murray-Smith is very familiar to MTC audiences for her works such as Bombshells (2002) and Songs for Nobodies (2010) and her overseas success with Honour (1995) and Rapture (2002). And again, with The Gift, she has proven herself to be a cultural asset to the Australian theatre scene. Murray-Smith’s strength lies in focusing on a small sector of life where her characters anxiously explore their own world whilst at the same time making it recognisable for the audience, and then shifting the parameters of the known and presenting a new challenge for both the character and audience to come to grips with.
The decision to open the play with Bolton’s character Sadie inviting us into this world with a direct to audience monologue could be disarming in the hands of a less competent writer (or director and actor one might add) but in this case it definitely works. Bolton’s delivery and style allows us to safely move into this world of wealth and extravagance at the resort, and to feel we know her and her husband Ed very well from the outset; the type of people they are, the marriage they have and what life has in store for them. Piper and Bolton have a wonderful chemistry and combined with their expert comic timing their pot-shots and witty one-liners about wanting to spice things up, phony friends and the like immediately endear us to them. But also important in the three dimensional character aspect of the writing and delivery is the occasional peppering of poignant moments about Sadie’s infertility, Ed’s love of jazz, and the boredom of them both. Debicki and Dyktynski enter this world as not only the young couple but also the less experienced actors, but they do a very fine job of meeting the mark. Both have a great sense of space, movement and stagecraft and allow us to peep into their insular world as parents of four year old Eleanor and the life of being a conceptual artist and journalist.  
At the helm of breathing life into the work and guiding the actors is the wonderful, deft direction of Maria Aitken who has won numerous awards (an Olivier, three Tonys and a Helpmann) and was well qualified to shape this work in the appropriate manner. The movement from scene to scene and within the scene flows seamlessly and beautifully and was enhanced by the decision of the rotating stage that allowed the energy and focus to not drop but merely shift.  Aitken allows each actor their own moment to shine and connect with the audience and yet always making sure that each one was using the entire space and a range of levels by climbing or lounging on furniture or more creatively - using the bar as a boat. The pacing and delivery of lines was superb and never faltered, and the switch from clever banter to deeper discussions about the purpose of art, class and choices seems right with the actors fully evoking their lines as well as downing expensive alcohol happily served to them by Leighton Young who played the minor role of the resort waiter. The pivotal rescue at the end of Act One leaves the audience reeling and going into the interval break thinking about what you would ask for as a reward and the idea of how much one’s life is really with anyway. The second half sees less laughs as it were but it’s definitely just as engaging as Murray-Smith changes not only location and time to Ed and Sadie’s city apartment 12 months later, but also how their lives and relationships have evolved and changed.  We see Sadie and Ed living more freely and happier than ever, and excited to see their young friends – where Martin is now a widely recognised and successful conceptual artist. The tension and emotion of all the characters builds rapidly as Chloe and Martin grapple at first to mention and then desperately try to persuade Sadie and Ed to deal with what the gift is that they want and can it be given. This is where Debicki’s class as an actor really stood out – you could feel her anguish, her torment and her pain as she crumbled under the weight of what she was asking for and what that said about her as a human being. In the end, the quiet playing of Eleanor on a raised backstage behind a glass window and the chattering of the four couples leaves the door open for interpretation for how these lives and this friendship will continue in the future. It was a most apt way to finish and definitely had people talking long into the night afterwards.
 
Richard Roberts’ set was expansively modern and chic for the first half in the resort, and opulent and gorgeous for the apartment location in Act Two. The functionality of the places were enhanced by the wonderful photographic backdrops that depicted the island and cityscapes referred to in the two acts. These production elements were extremely well supported by the ambient lighting design of Hartley T A Kemp and the complimentary musical composition of Ian McDonald that added to the changing moods and place. 
The Gift is funny, sharp and relevant. It reveals the truth of marriage and is a wonderful exploration about the lengths we would go to for a friend, and are there boundaries that are too far to cross. It has all the elements of a great play in production; clever writing, excellent direction, slick production elements and outstanding acting. It is a play where you laugh out loud at the quick quips and throwaway lines, feel the angst at the pain of hard choices and all the while glad you went along to the theatre for this enjoyable ride because the issues at hand force you to have a good time, and then seriously ponder afterwards about what has just been witnessed, shared and decided upon, and whether you would do the same.
 
State: 
VIC