2024: The Cut by Mark Ravenhill

 

 
 The Cut by Mark Ravenhill.  Presented by The Seeing Place and Lexi Sekuless Productions at The Mill Theatre, Dairy Road, Canberra, September 12 – 21, 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 19

Co-Producer – Lexi Sekuless; Produced by The Seeing Place
Director – Sammy Moynihan
Sound Designer and Operator – Marlene Radice
Lighting Designer – Jen Wright
Photos by Andrew Sikorsky

Cast
Paul – Ali Clinch
John / Meena – Diana Caban Velez
Stephen / Geeta – Maxine Beaumont
Susan – Hanna Tonks


The Cut is not an entertainment.  It is deeply depressing.  Yet the directing, sound design and acting create a work of significant theatre art.

We see a woman called Paul in three scenes:

 

At work as the administrator and operative of the government office of the legislated Cut program, interviewing a prospective young woman who insists on being cut:

 At home after work with their wife:

 Meeting up with their daughter Stephen on their return from university studies: 

In each situation another woman appears in a servile role, often breaking glassware which we hear in the background.

Sexuality and sexual roles are fluid.  Metaphorical implications abound, from female genital mutilation to glass ceilings; husbands’ coercive control to domestic violence; parents’ ‘ownership’ of children to their failure to accept their child’s adult independence.

It’s never a pretty picture in its 90 minutes of interactional talk and intense emotional reactions, without interval.  Be prepared for mystification gradually resolving into an awful sense of despair about the future of humankind.

It’s almost weird, then, to read the Wikipedia story of theatrical success of British playwright Mark Ravenhill, “one of the most widely performed playwrights in British theatre of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries.”  The Cut appeared in 2006, midway in his career, working “as a freelance director, workshop leader and drama teacher” in the 1980s through to when “In September 2023, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama announced that Ravenhill would be joining their teaching staff as a Visiting Lecturer and co-tutor, focusing his time on the Writing for Performance BA degree.” [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Ravenhill ]

Maybe it means that theatre is more real than the real life it presents for us to be depressed by.

This is where the success of Lexi Sekuless Productions makes its entrance.  To quote: “The Cut is presented as part of the Mill Theatre co-production series, a program which provides an avenue for creatives to present their own work in the Mill Theatre space.  There have been 2 co-productions so far but, excitingly, The Cut is the biggest of its kind to date at the Mill and The Seeing Place have created a model which we can roll out for all ACT creatives to enjoy.”

The Mill reminds me of my visit, fortunately long before Covid, to see Ionesco’s La leçon at Théâtre de la Huchette, the tiny 85 seat theatre set up in Paris in 1948 largely, I believe, in response to the horrors of World War II and the end of the occupation.  

“As of February 2017 the two plays, Ionesco's The Bald Soprano (La Cantatrice chauve) followed directly by The Lesson, have been performed more than 18,000 times at the theater, holding the record for longest running show without interruption at a single theater.

In 1975 the owner, Marcel Pinard, suffered a fatal heart attack in the theater's box office. Following his death the actors who had played the Ionesco double bill since 1957 battled to prevent the closure of the theater, eventually forming their own theater company to continue production.”  
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre_de_la_Huchette ]

I trust Lexi may not have such a dire experience, but hope the Mill Theatre may have an equally long history.  The quality of The Seeing Place production of The Cut certainly matched my experience in Paris, and looks forward to providing Canberra with such necessary, even though disturbing theatre, far into the future.

©Frank McKone, Canberra