Wind

‘WIND’ is a well-devised play, formulated by a group of ten actors from the WA Youth Theatre Company under the supervision of their 24-year-old director, Patrick Downes. This unusual production was sponsored by the City of Perth and ‘Act, Belong, Commit’, the section of Healthway relating to a mentally healthy lifestyle. The play is showing, very appropriately, at the City Farm, 1 City Farm Place, East Perth. The hour and a half performances start at 7.30 pm. Nightly until Saturday 8^th December.

        In a large farm shed (18 metres by 30), with the internal walls painted white and a smooth concrete floor, a few dozen comfortable seats are placed around the periphery.

       A powerful lamp placed on the floor projects a three-metre shadow onto the wall. It is that of a young woman wearing a gas mask. The massive metal doors clatter open, and in staggers a group of coughing and dying youngsters. A wind of noxious gases has swept across the large city, with less than one in a thousand surviving. 

      We jump forward a few years, and still the area has virtually no population. A fifteen-year-old girl, Charlie (Rebecca Dunn – aged 16) clutches her sole belonging, a teddy bear, as she sits talking to her only friend, an older but slightly shifty man, Marshall (Zachary Drieberg – aged 19). He announces that he must leave her and go searching for food, but that he will return soon. Shortly afterwards, an older woman, Alice (Lucy Clements – aged 18), who is covered in blood, staggers up to Charlie. She has just had her husband die in her arms and her daughter has disappeared. She ‘adopts’ Charlie and they go searching for other survivors.

      Soon they come across a small wrecked farm with a small commune. The self-appointed leader is Robert (Brendan Ellis – aged 22), he warmly welcomes the couple, but the nervous and anxious Clara (Mariah O’Dea – aged 21) is strongly against any incomers, after all, they are having trouble feeding themselves and there are horrendous tales coming from the city. With misfits in the group, like the city girl, Kelly (Olivia Okely – age 15) who squirms at the thought of being anywhere near a farm animal, and dreamy Sarah (Hannah Rice – aged 21) the idealistic greenie who is sure that nature will provide their every need. Quietly sitting in the background is a shell-shocked hippie, Nemo (Andy Couanis – aged 22) who is desperately trying to regain positive thoughts.

Will the group survive as it is? Or is trouble brewing around the corner?

The group have developed some very clever and complex characters, and they portray them extremely well. The director chose the topic of Wind because being a cystic fibrosis sufferer; he knows only to well how important good, clean air is to a person. On asking the group to think of a story about the end of the world, he expected a flood of Zombies, but was proud to hear the sensible topics chosen and the mature way they were developed.

Although the actors pace was perfect and their delivery generally very good, the massive barn tended to eat up the sound and so a little more projection would have helped. The artistic director, Phil Thomson, had a small but talented team. The venue was perfect for this type of performance, the ruggedness of the building and Sara Chirichilli’s set of a central collapsed windmill surrounded by piece of boxes and timber was ideal. Joe Lui’s lighting, as always, was emotive with the warm glow of the morning sun changing through to the cool of the evening. Joe’s subtle sound design of the wind blowing across the countryside, the whirring of windmills and the hum of power lines gave an isolated, creepy feel to the whole play. The tricky stage management was competently handled by Laurie McAinsh.

This was naturally a very serious play, but Hannah Rice’s hilarious script brought relief to the tense depression.

A tricky topic to tackle, but a result that should make every member of the cast justifiably proud to be a part.