Reviewed by Frank McKone
February 18
Director: Jordan Best
Set Design and Construction: Chris Zuber; Lighting design: Jacob Aquilina; Sound Design/Composition: Matthew Webster; Props: Yanina Clifton
Cast:
Rachel Pengilly – Lizzie
Natasha Vickery – Lizzie’s mother, Angela
Joel Horwood – Warren, Lizzie’s father
Craig Alexander – small town police officer, Ray
At the very least this is an interesting play to begin our year of vaccination. There are so many viewpoints to start from.
The
policeman, Ray, in some ways is a bit of a plodder: I can almost hear
him say, with heavy sarcasm, “That’s a likely story!” How likely? is a
question I have to ask.
Then I must think about Hillary Bell’s
intention in making up a story about a nine year old girl’s inner wolf
and her parents. Has Lizzie inherited a dangerous mental state from her
mother? Have Warren and Angela created an evil child through their
fractious relationship? Can we ever know ‘the truth’? Is the
application of criminal law the only way society can respond, if telling
lies is truly a natural element of the human condition?
The
directing and design of the telling of this story on this stage must be
considered in the light of this likely or unlikely child’s tale with its
philosophical implications.
Then I might be able to say if this innoculation against the fear of childhood killing has worked.
The
set design image which seemed to place most of the action behind the
wire of something like a refugee detention centre stirred my
questioning. That central space became Lizzie’s bedroom, the police
office, Angela’s living room, the police interrogation room, as well as
the remand cell. Perhaps the image represented the idea that all the
people in their different ways were trapped in a chicken-wire cage,
including Angela and her daughter because of their psychological
conditions; Ray as he had to interrogate only according to the book;
even the dead child Toby was in there behind the community’s
commemoration flowers and poems placed outside the wire.
But
apparently not Warren who was so often, conveniently, ‘on shift’, to pay
for Angela’s and his separate rents, or when it was the weekend – the
court-order time when his daughter stayed at his place – and the
parents’ arguments took place in open space around the central raised
set as if in the street where the children’s hopscotch pitch was laid
out. On the sides, left and right, words about murder were projected,
becoming meaningful later as Ray’s interrogation ‘progressed’ and
Lizzie’s parents worked out what their daughter might have done.
This
set, combined with an ominous background sound track of children’s
apocryphal skipping rhymes, disturbed me in two different ways.
First, as I suppose on reflection I was meant to feel, it all seemed to be an omen of doom.
But
I also felt there was a mismatch between this use of symbolic image and
space and the seemingly naturalistic presentation of the characters.
Rachel Pengilly played her nine-year-old Lizzie so realistically that I
found myself worrying that such a young actor was being allowed to play
such psychological trauma – only to find when reading the program after
the show that she is old enough to have a BA degree from University of
New England.
Craig Alexander’s Ray, again naturalistically,
played out the policeman’s conflict of feelings towards this local young
girl, whose family he knew: he had unbending evidence-gathering rules
to follow, while feeling at times sympathetic in a kindly adult way
towards Lizzie’s telling lies, as well as feeling stressed by the
frustration of not being able to extract the truth.
Similarly,
the coming together and blowing apart episodes in Angela and Warren’s
feelings about each other were realistic and very uncomfortable to
watch.
After overnight reflection, I wonder if the set design,
still without any need to set-change from short scene to short scene,
would have been better if it represented a plain bland small room with a
small desk, a chair and single bed, in which the naturalistic acting
would feel normal instead of somehow out-of-place in the chicken-wire
setting.
By amazing coincidence, the image I have in mind appeared in Canberra’s CityNews on the very day of Wolf Lullaby’s
opening night. In a highly unlikely story, a significant artist,
Melissa Beowulf, has painted “Cottage Room” 2018, representing the room
in which she was held in remand at the Alexander Maconochie Centre for
14 months on a charge of murder (acquitted at her trial). [https://citynews.com.au/2021/digital-edition-february-18/ Page 28 in “Effects of injustice linger for ‘powerless’ painter” by arts editor Helen Musa]
 |
| Image courtesy of Melissa Beowulf CityNews Digital Edition February 18, 2021 P28 |
The
surround-sound of children’s rhymes would still make the point, and
make us feel concerned about the violence inherent in many nursery
rhymes. The words that Lizzie supposedly wrote might have been better
projected above the stage, rather as Tennessee Williams did in The Glass Menagerie.
A photo of the flowers and poems for Toby could be projected perhaps on
the room window, as if on TV news, when the adults in the dialogue
become aware of what Lizzie had written, and her words could appear as
if the news camera had zoomed in.
Perhaps my reaction seems a bit
old-fashioned, but I think the playscript and our need to come to grips
with the truth of the story is unsettling in itself. The mismatch in
the set design was an extra layer which disturbed my focus on the
characters and the implications of their experience, though the
directing and performance in the acting was excellent.
In other words, Echo Theatre’s presentation of Hilary Bell’s Wolf Lullaby at The Q, Queanbeyan is an interesting production indeed. Innoculation is advisable.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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