Bonesyard by Stuart Roberts and One For The Road by Harold Pinter. Bohemian Productions directed by Nick Johnson, at The Street Theatre Studio. January 23 - February 2, Wednesday to Saturday, 8pm.
"We want you to leave this play feeling raw and hateful, as if you've peeled a scab prematurely" is an invitation sorely missed in most evenings at the theatre. Being an "innovative young theatre company" makes such demands an obligation on company and audience, perhaps, but I'm not sure that Bonesyard came up to scratch.
On the other hand, Pinter's masterful theatre of menace in One For The Road - with all its overtones for politics from our Minister for Immigration's wonderful twisting of the Woomera reality in absolutely legalistic terms to all the extremities of absolutist autocrats like Suharto, the Taliban, Pol Pot, Saddam and many others (you can decide where to place Saudi Arabia, Israel, Yasser Arafat or George Bush on this sliding scale) - lived up to the promise. George Huitker as Nicolas, the interrogator, nicely underplayed the role, exactly as real interrogators do and we certainly felt raw and hateful in sympathy with Victor (Arran McKenna), his wife Gila (Claire Bocking) and son Nicky (Simon Read).
In Bonesyard, only Gina Guirguis spoke with the clarity of diction the script needed - and created a well-rounded character - while the three men (David Finnigan as Will, Jack Lloyd as Ferguson and Ben Hamey as Parker) need to develop precision in their acting.
The script is a quite interesting idea - a rather ghoulish fascination with people being murdered and their bodies being sold for medical experimentation, Mary the whore being the unwitting victim on this occasion who realises what is happening only after she has been poisoned and it is too late. Ferguson the surgeon is the ringleader, in a setting that seemed to be England 200 years ago. The script probably needs tightening, cf Pinter, but the presentation of the male characters also needed better direction.
It's good to see groups like Bohemians take the theatrical reins into their own hands, but I look forward to their writing a program which avoids weak "humour": it diminishes the work they present on stage, especially Pinter.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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