The Winterling
at Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre, rear 2 Chapel St, St Kilda East
from March 21 to April 29
Wednesday to Saturday 8pm, Sunday 6.30pm
$30 Full, $20 Concession
Bookings on 03 0533 8083 or via www.redstitch.net
Jez Butterworth burst into the world of British theatre with his Royal Court debut, Mojo, in 1995. Critics responded favourably to his work, a gangster tale set in London’s blood-soaked fifties, and it is to this particular territory that Butterworth returns in his third play, The Winterling, premiering here in Australia thanks to The Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre.
Len West is waiting in an abandoned farmhouse on the blasted heaths of Dartmoor, when his vigil is disturbed by a vagrant seeking shelter. A bottle of wine and some glasses are readied on the table; in short order the wanderer is hurried from the house and an air of tense expectation again settles. From the dark, bleak night come Wally and his young associate Patsy, mud-covered from their slog across the rain-soaked countryside, and as they warm before the fire reverie and revelations unwind like a roll of barbed wire.
In the confines of the Red Stitch theatre, a dangerous intimacy is established as the borders of influence are drawn and redrawn between the men, the sharp rhythms of Butterworth’s dialogue capturing the ear of the audience like the snare strokes of an accomplished jazz drummer. Nicholas Bell is simply magnetic as the unnpredictable West, his physical presence a palpable force and his interrogative manner impossible to ignore. His relationship with former comrade Wally, played with equal measure of nerve and steel by Steven Adams, provides for some of the most electric banter theatre can provide.
Yet for all his evocative patterning, Butterworth fails to shape his tale into a sustained composition, leaving the whole feeling less than the sum of its parts. There are writerly tricks here that, were they more cleverly integrated, would impress were it not for the fact that they simply reveal the artifice of the work - the brooding fort that casts an oblique shadow over the farmhouse even in the deepest night, the mysterious girl in the window, the dark landscape outside as metaphor for the barely navigable terrain of masculine relationships - so that the denoument ultimately disappoints rather than exhilarates. Thankfully the cast carries the text on the strength of their performances, which on the whole are quite accomplished. The aforementioned Bell and Adams provide the backbone here, but the supporting players are hardly slack. Adrian Mulraney is strong as the vagrant Draycott (his monologue at the opening of the second half is a beautiful work revealing the danger of badger packs); Ella Caldwell displays a fractured strength as Lue; and while Martin Sharpe sometimes seems to be playing a caricature rather than inhabiting a character, at its best his Patsy is nevertheless an intriguing spin of bravado and naivete.
Peter Mumford’s set design is a wonderful rendering of a dilapidated homestead - bare boards and exposed masonry, discreetly placed instruments of agriculture scattered about the space like so many weapons waiting for the hand of the executor; while upstage centre, a staircase and atrium with a panelled window looks out into the dark inchoate night of Dartmoor. Mike Levi’s sound design is sparse and ear-splitting, strongly enhancing the sense of dislocation and creeping madness afforded by the constant roar of jets from the nearby RAF base, and director Andrew Gray achieves some nice spatial inversions here with good use of the offstage areas (though perhaps the atrium could have been utilised more). Gray imposes a strong form in which the quickstep dance of the dialogue can move. Perhaps his best work, however, awaits a bigger canvas.
Despite the defects inherent in its writing, The Winterling has much to recommend it. It is a particular strength of The Red Stitch Ensemble that they so frequently premiere new and challenging works, and this offer is no different. Even the occasional stumble from this committed troupe, after all, provides for a memorable night at the theatre.
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