REVIEW: 'The Bridge' - La Mama

As posted on the Arts Hub website. Written by Chris Thorpe. The Bridge could be one of those plays that anyone can pigeon-hole into the “theatre-in-education” box – as the themes deal with youth, community, family and the communication (or lack thereof) that a major incident in a small county town has the potential of bringing to the surface. Donny, the unseen character in Chris Thompson’s AWGIE award winning play, is the catalyst for bringing these everyday and extraordinary conflicts to light. Aaron (Michael Wahr), his best (and seemingly only) friend, witnesses Donny’s death at the site of an old, weather-worn train bridge – somewhere many adolescent folk have ventured to ‘escape’ the mundane existence of home and school life – somewhere dreams of bigger and better things could be visualised and made real. This traumatic event sparks Aaron on a somewhat downward spiral – he has difficulty expressing his emotions to not only his family, to which relations are already strained, but also to his other close and loyal friend, Desley (Caity Fowler). This is because Donny was not well liked by much of the small town community – teachers, parents, shopkeepers. And because of this, Aaron finds it almost impossible to mourn ‘out loud’ – something crucially important when a community such as this loses one of their own, especially one so young. Thompson, who also directed the piece, obviously didn’t want to over-complicate his script with theatrical techniques that could have assisted other small-budget productions. Danny Pettingill’s lighting design was very simple and followed the scene changes fluently enough the acting, although energetic, was not guided into what could have been fully dramatic performances. Both Wahr and Fowler (both promising actors) were terrific, however, as the younger, more fragile characters scene changes were clunky and some of the dialogue could have even been edited more cleanly. However, many of the one-on-one scenes gave wonderful perspective of the impact of such a tragedy and were quite poignant. These scenes were where the audience could really feel what was happening beneath the surface for all the characters – all impacting differently, but nonetheless leaving a mark. What did make The Bridge more three dimensional (and a pity it didn’t explore it further), was the pained relationship between Aaron and his father, Reg (Kurt Geyer). Reg was once a proud dairy farmer, providing for his family and living his dream. But he had to compromise greatly when the drought hit and was forced to move to the town and become a ‘lollypop man’ to help pay the bills. Reg’s fatal flaw (like many fathers) is, that without even the simplest of communications to his only son, he deludes himself into thinking that his son will be ‘okay’ and can ‘find his own way in life’. However, ‘finding his own way’ for Aaron is skipping town and leaving his only support network behind, in the hope of a new beginning in the city. Although this production of The Bridge is not a fine-tuned piece of theatre, it is its heart and the importance of closure and the finding of one’s own self that endears the viewer. The raw dialogue, direction and set (in the intimate space of La Mama) both assists and detracts from the main message, leaving the audience with a sobering view of such a story we read all too much of in the papers, but never seem to fully empathise with.