Alienation

‘Alienation’ is a spanking new, up to the minute, theatre production from the courageous Perth Theatre Company, is co-produced with Q Theatre Company. This world premiere was written by Lachlan Philpott, an Eastern States directing student who became interested in writing. He then took the NIDA Writers’ course and has written plays that have been presented all over the world, collecting numerous awards on the way, not least the Best Stage Play of 2011, and was shortlisted Best New Australian Work The Helpmann Awards 2011. Lachlan is now Chair of the Australian Writers’ Guild Playwriting Committee.

Philpott wrote ‘Alienation’ after seeing Mary Rodwell’s 2010, SBS documentary on alien abductions. Whilst a nurse and counsellor, Mary Rodwell met numerous patients that claimed to have been abducted by aliens. It is thought that everyday three Australians are contacted by an otherworldly force, and so in 1997, to help them cope with their ordeals, she formed ACERN (Australian Close Encounter Resource Network). There are many sceptics, but only 120 years ago the suggestion that you could be in Perth in the morning and Sydney by night would have been equally ludicrous, so are there aliens?

Showing at the Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre of WA in Northbridge, the 90-minutes performances are nightly, at 8.00 pm until the 13^th July, Saturday matinee 4.00pm and evening performance 8.30 pm.

The wide stage is empty, except for a couple of dozen, various sized, black and white balloons. The floor is painted grey and black mottle. A large opaque gauze completely covers the width and height of the back of the stage (design Bruce McKinven, assisted by Patrick Howe).

        With a blue glow coming from the sky at the back, the appearance is that of the moon surface. Four people, dressed in white one-piece protective suits, wander around looking, checking and playing with the ‘gravity free’ balloons. One at a time, they introduce themselves as the actor that they are, and explain that even they have had someone in the family that has had an alien experience.

       A space woman (assistant stage manager Alissa Claessens?) enters carrying a microphone and places it centre stage. The actors then remove their paper suits and transform into their ‘play’ characters.

       Sparkling Tiffany (Naomi Hanbury) is happily married to Brian (Luke Hewitt), but is becoming increasingly annoyed by his recent paranoia and apparent illnesses. 

       Tim (Robert Jago) disappears for a few hours on his trip down south to visit relatives, and is now a withdrawn, changed man. He seeks help from an ‘alien suffers group’ and meets exuberant Catherine (Natalie Holmwood) who desperately wants to start a relationship.

Benjamin Cisterne’s lighting design was cleverly linked to the dramatic sound design from Peter Dawson and the pulsating, vivacious AV design by Roly Skender. The open stage is vast and an area difficult to handle, but the result was vibrant.

Over the years, both director, Melissa Cantwell and her assistant director, Ian Sinclair have proved themselves to be creative and exciting masters of lateral thinking, squeezing every ounce of interest from a script. Here however, the dialogue was presented in annoyingly brief sentences or paragraphs, as a narrator and a character alternated lines. Trying to gather depth to the personalities became difficult.
The cast – who are WAAPA or NIDA trained - have numerous Equity Award nominations and wins, tried hard with well-devised choreography (Sue Peacock) and great delivery. They had engaging expressions and meaningful body movement, but I struggled to stay interested.

‘The Laramie Project’ was a magnificent play, similarly built on the tales of a thousand people. There was a large cast, numerous stories, great characterisation and totally enthralling. Sadly, with this play I found the half dozen personal views enacted here lacked depth. If the author only wanted a small cast, then blend a dozen tales into each person’s experiences. This play was like watching several highly experienced chefs getting together to make toast – despite the knowledge and skills employed, it is still just toast! Even with the hard efforts of the director, cast and techies, because of the lacklustre script the result was doomed to be bland. Just when a character was really starting to gain the audience’s interest, their experiences were dropped and we moved onto another player.

I expected tension, fear, curiousity, excitement - some kind of emotional stimulation. It wasn't there.

Cast and presentation – wonderful. Script – could do better. Disappointed.