Enlightenment
by Harry Caul
Enlightenment
by Shelagh Stephenson
Melbourne Theatre Company
Cast Includes Nicholas Bell, Caroline Brazier, Grant Cartwright, Beverley Dunn, Lewis Fiander, Sarah Peirse
Directed by Julian Meyrick
Set Designer Ralph Myers
Costume Designer Miranda Flinn
Lighting Designer Paul Jackson
Composer Tim Dargaville
Fairfax Studio, The Arts Centre
8 June to 21 July 2007
Shelagh Stephenson is a playwright unafraid of treating her audience to the darker recesses of the soul. Enlightenment is in large part a searing deconstruction of what can be known and what can be predicted, revealing the minute, unknowable and unforeseeable elements of human behaviour and circumstance that can upset the balance of a contented life. At the centre of the play is a couple whose son has recently gone missing while travelling overseas. The couple, Lia (Sarah Pierse) and Nick (Nicholas Bell) are middle class, intellectual and comfortable in every possible except that they aren’t comfortable at all. The loss of their son, Adam, has swallowed their lives—the uncertainty of his whereabouts and of his being alive has left them untethered and bereft. Nicholas seeks consolation in the endorphins of exercise, or is he perhaps running himself faint as penitence. Lia finds herself reaching out for Adam through any means possibl, including drawing on the help of the “sensitive” (or “psychic”) Joyce (Beverley Dunn). The first half of the play seems to be heading in the direction of a domestic examination of grief, or loss. However, the second half entirely breaks down the genre of drawing room ennui (cleverly echoed in Ralph Myers’ design) and the play becomes a taut and engaging psychological game of cat and mouse where the bounds of character and narrative reliability become increasingly blurred. The agent provocateur in all this is the ever-excellent Grant Cartwright, whose arrival at the end of the first half unravels the structure that precedes it and opens the stage to a whole host of possibilities. The cast is generally strong, with Beverley Dunn providing enough acerbic wit to make the sentimental side of the psychic character palatable. Sarah Pierse is witheringly effective as Lia and Nicholas Bell humanises the rational-at-all-costs Nick brilliantly. A surprisingly thrilling night at the theatre and one that gets darker and more mysterious every minute.
Grassroots
Attending an online college can be one way to help save money on getting yourself a degree considering the fact that if you go to an online university you won’t need to do any driving to attend classes. Through online colleges you can do more than just get credits; in some fields you can get a whole online bachelor degree from home.
comments
Leave a Reply