Black and White

‘Black and White’ was originally written as a ‘short’ for the September presentation of ‘Shorts’ by The Old Mill in September this year. The following is a copy of that production's review. This 60-minute, professional production showed for two nights at the Subiaco Arts Centre on the 20^th and 21^st of November.

         Loving and caring 18 years old Alison (Krysia Wiechecki) is living in a rundown apartment with her much older partner Peter (Phil Barnett). ‘As a woman’s place is in the home’ subservient Alison will do anything to keep Peter happy. He obviously cares a great deal for her – or does he?

 

As always Dannielle Ashton’s direction, assisted here by Katie Cameron, is superb. With the whole set painted matte black, black drapes and black props, save the single white pillowslip on Alison’s side of the bed, the sombre side of the very well written text was emphasised.

Despite the stage crew being well focused and efficient, each of the set changes unfortunately slowed the pace and reduced the tension that had just been built up; I am sorry, but I have no suggestions of how that could be overcome. Good lighting and sound from Julia Hern. Well chosen mood music.

Krysia has always given the very best of her immense talent, but here, in an especially powerful performance, she drained every ounce of sympathy from the audience as she dealt with the skilled manipulator. Phil was threatening in the ‘Last Train to Freo’ but here I found his performance as the unpredictable partner terrifying, as the two characters played out a scenario that almost everyone will have witnessed amongst their family or friends. Eilannin’s writing was very well observed and the dialogue flowed naturally. Often this type of drama gets too sentimental, or tries to push a message, here we were fed unadorned facts of an unbearable situation and left to suffer along with Alison.

This heavy drama may not be to everyone’s taste, one audience member told me that whilst they thought the acting was magnificent, they hated every minute – perhaps it bit a little too close to home, or they don’t want to watch other people’s dirty washing being aired in public.

Parts of the story reminded me of Terence Stamp’s film ‘The Collector’.

A very powerful and beautifully executed play. A story that needed to be told.

 

Subiaco version. The director and playwright have taken on board many of the suggestions and comments made by friends after the Old Mill production. The set changes were much quicker, really slick. The same excellent tech team.

Seeing this for the second time, the husband’s self-righteous attitude along with his constant mental and physical abuse still made me really cringe. One could hear the mutterings of disgust and amazement at the man’s attitude from the almost full house. A great play if you have the cast to carry it off, Danni Ashton certainly had a first class couple of actors here.