May 22, 2010<\/p>\n
The Seven Stages of Grieving
\nby Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman
\nState Theatre Company of South Australia
\nThe Space, Adelaide Festival Centre
\nMay 22. . Tickets\u00a0 $ 29 – 59. Bookings : BASS 131 246
\nUntil May 29. \u00a0SA regional tour until June 17.<\/p>\n
The Share
\nby Daniel Keene
\nfive.point.one
\nThe Bakehouse, 255 Angas Street, Adelaide
\nMay 20. Tickets $ 20 – 25. Bookings : ph 8227 0505
\nUntil June 5.<\/p>\n
In the State Theatre Company revival of The Seven Stages of Grieving<\/em>, Lisa Flanagan, the young Aboriginal woman narrator says \u201cEverything has its time.\u201d The time for writers Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman was 1993, a time of difficulty but also promise. Their daisy-chain narrative laments some grim experiences, both past and present. \u00a0But there is also a wry comedy, a sense of optimism, and the inevitability of change.<\/p>\n Building on the vibrant performance by Lisa Flanagan, director Rosalba Clemente has retained much of the appeal of Enoch and Mailman\u2019s original production which many of us were fortunate to see. Performing on Morag Cook\u2019s raised circular wooden stage, Flanagan, in a white sleeveless dress which doubles as a screen for projections of words and images, reaches into a battered \u00a0suitcase to find mementos, \u00a0photographs, press clippings, red earth \u00a0and other traces, to describe actual instances of injustice and oppression \u2013 deaths in custody, children removed from families, and discriminations, both trivial and profound.<\/p>\n Seeing the play performed again , even after the PM\u2019s 2008 Sorry speech (or perhaps because of it ) there is a sense that \u00a0hope for change has mired in disappointment, that progress has stalled, and that the time has still not come.\u00a0 All the more reason, of course, for Rosalba Clemente and Lisa Flanagan\u2019s spirited\u00a0 revival of this play and the uncomfortable questions it so artfully and concisely raises.<\/p>\n Independent Adelaide company, \u00a0five.point.one , has also found a play, not of our time, but for it. Daniel Keene is another Australian playwright who deals in inconvenient truths, and his short play from 2000, The Share,<\/em> is an excellent example. As in other works by Keene, such as Low<\/em> and Silent Partner<\/em>, the characters\u2019 lives are unraveling before their eyes. The title refers to the proceeds of a violent robbery committed against a drug dealer by two young men, Tex and Sugar, and whether there is also a slice for the one-eyed Kid who knows of other lucrative targets in the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n Assisted by Cassandra Backler\u2019s minimal design, director Corey McMahon places the action disconcertingly close to the audience, managing the violence and brutal language with a minimum of guignol and a maximum of emotional effect.<\/p>\n As Tex and Sugar, Scott Marcus and Matthew Crook stalk, taunt and provoke each other into shared cruelties which are convincingly awful, while Cameron Pike\u2019s monologue , as the Kid, describing his sexual abuse of a child, \u00a0is harrowing. This is difficult, bleak theatre but, as always with Daniel Keene (and five.point.one ) there is a purpose to it. When Tex howls like a dog, it is cry from the heart – a foul, rag and bone heart, but a human one all the same.<\/p>\n Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" May 22, 2010 The Seven Stages of Grieving by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman State Theatre Company of South Australia The Space, Adelaide Festival Centre May 22. . Tickets\u00a0 $ 29 – 59. Bookings : BASS 131 246 Until May 29. \u00a0SA regional tour until June 17. The Share by Daniel Keene five.point.one The Bakehouse, 255 Angas Street, Adelaide May 20. Tickets $ 20 – 25. Bookings : ph 8227 0505 Until June 5. In the State Theatre Company revival […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7","category-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1687,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions\/1687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}