BELVOIR’S ‘EVERY BREATH’ written & directed by Benedict Andrews, dissected by me.

When John Howard quoted Chekhov in Benedict Andrews’ play, “Never put a loaded weapon on stage if no-one is thinking about firing it,” I thought to myself, shooting this play would have been a mercy killing.

‘Every Breath’ is an exercise in humiliation- of its cast, its characters and its audience. But you know what? For once, I don’t blame Benedict Andrews for this work as its director and writer. He’s an artist who has a particular voice and style that we’ve come to love or hate. I have no doubt he approaches his work with his own brand of integrity. I don’t think he sits at home mulling over how he can lock the audience out of his work- it’s just his work, given a main stage viewing, time and time again. I mean it would be easy for me to slam Andrews. People have come to expect it. But I do go in to his work hoping to see something that crystallises his ideas and awakens in me a new respect and admiration for him.

No. This time I blame Belvoir and their creative management team for allowing a piece of work to go on the stage that should never have seen the light of day. It’s time to stop experimenting with a group of friends who want to dabble in the craft of writing with no evidence that they are actually any good at it and then give them the main stage to test their work. I don’t want to pay $50 to sit in a theatre laboratory and watch gratuitous, disconnected, poorly-written plays. Just stop. Please. Stop. And that’s what Belvoir should have said to Andrews. Stop. But they didn’t and we all wear the cost.

Let me give you a four line synopsis of ‘Every Breath’.

Chris is an androgynous security guard looking after a family who are ambiguously under threat. She has sex with every member of the family, often. She gets shot and everyone masturbates to try and rekindle their time with Chris. Chris then strips naked in front of the audience.

Got it? Great.

First question: Was it meant to be a comedy? There were times I laughed out loud but I don’t think I was meant to. The guy in the row behind us seemed to suggest he was just as confused when he said ‘What is this play about? I don’t get it’. The people who walked out before the 80 minute show had finished seemed to have ‘gotten’ quite enough.  The smartest thing about the show was not to put in an interval. There would have been very few return patrons to the second half I would think.

Second question: I thought we’d moved beyond the lights down, new scene every 20 seconds transitions in professional theatre. Apparently not. Why is it that the ability to understand that if your episodic narrative doesn’t have coherence or structural integrity and technical trickery can’t save it, you can’t see that there may be a problem with the material?

Third question: How much did the set cost? Alice Babidge is a design genius. I mean the set is very clever, she never disappoints. In fact, the tech crew and design personnel are often the highlight of the creativity to be showcased at Belvoir.  They must look on with horror when they see what is unfolding on stage and wonder how Belvoir get away with it.

The set, a hydraulic, large reflective tiled square that lifts out of the floor and can be manipulated in many configurations, like something out of a Cirque de Soleil show, was a creative piece of machinery in an otherwise gratuitous play. But was it worth the cost when it affected sightlines or was another tool in poor transitions? If you are going to spend all that money, at least use it well.

Fourth question: This is a biggie. Who on earth did you think would want to see this play? Let’s put aside that we have two 16 year old characters cavorting naked sliding around the floor with each other.  I don’t know many brothers and sisters of that age who would want to swim and grope each other naked in the pool. I mean I know a lot of teenagers and I’m sure if I asked them on a scale of grossest things ever they could think of doing, this would probably rate high on their list.

Then let’s count the amount of nudity, graphic simulated sexual acts and self-gratification, even during other character’s monologues to the audience. It started to feel like a live pornographic exhibition. Did I stumble into Sexpo by mistake? It was completely degrading to everyone who was involved or witness to it.

You know those moments when you realise you have been sitting watching something with a quite unconscious expression of incredulous disgust? That was me and I’m sure I was not alone. And when I looked at some of those actors, like John Howard, I felt he was ashamed of being associated with this play and I couldn’t blame him. The play was an offense to the talent of the actors on stage, making them commit to this palpable waste.

Fifth question: What are you selling to me in this show? If your aesthetic is to alienate, like the predilection of the German artists, in order to avoid empathy or catharsis to heighten the ideas, this play only takes you half way there. You see, the lack of empathy, that I got. Never for one moment did I care about the characters. But if you want me to focus on the ideas of the play, could someone help me out here? What’s your message? What are you saying? What’s your objective? Your through-line? Your social examination of the human condition? What??

This play is so thin that even a reference to Greek mythology in an effort to make us believe that Chris is a contemporary irresistible Hermaphroditus wasn’t enough. Was it to mirror art and life as Chris utters “I have this recurring nightmare where I am on display in a circus or museum….I have to stand there naked for a very long time and it hurts….And all these people are staring at me..” before she strips naked and stands there in pain? OK. So is the play about making people do uncomfortable things for a play? Well, you can tick that one off the list then. Success.

There were big holes in the plot. Why is this family under threat? And from whom? If this is the premise or construct of the events of the play, surely it needs to be dealt with?

At the end of the show, if the only pity you feel is for the artists involved in this show, you know it’s a dog. A floating dog in the pool maybe.

So my final words are back to Belvoir. Stop letting artists, whose writing is not ready, jump the queue. You made Brendan Cowell and Kate Mulvany test their work downstairs before giving it an upstairs program and it really honed their craft. Same with Tommy Murphy, who worked with Griffin, before programming him into Belvoir’s big stage, or the musical Keating did a cabaret run before it morphed upstairs. Do the same for your mates because you’re actually not doing them, or those involved with giving it life, or your audience, any favours by putting them on when they’re not ready.

Stop. Please. Stop.

DARLINGHURST THEATRE & FISHY PRODUCTIONS ‘Time Stands Still’ dissected by me

Last night I caught ‘Time Stands Still’ at the Darlinghurst Theatre, directed by Kim Hardwick and it got me thinking, why is a strictly realist piece so unfashionable these days?

Donald Margulies’ play is a masterful, well-constructed piece with intelligent dialogue, interesting characters and relationships and I think Hardwick has done a solid job in honouring this lively, high stakes provoking play. She has not inserted herself into the play and made it about her ego, her tricks or morphed it into something else. Instead Hardwick has taken the integrity of the work and trusted the writer’s words to deliver for the audience, gently manipulating the actors, design and effects to focus on the characters and their existentialist dilemmas.

Perhaps that’s why we don’t see as many realist plays anymore. What director wants to let the playwright’s work be the focus in this world of director as auteur? How passé of Hardwick. What was she thinking?

I know I have referenced national styles and their development so let me segue way briefly into American Realism. Margulies play captures this style in its tempo, setting and what is happening right now, just as some of the best American writers before him have done and are found now in his contemporary playwrighting peers, like LaBute, Lindsay-Abaire or Letts. The psychological interplay of tactics in securing our own desires is given a real context and when done well, gives us a chance to reflect on our own choices in life and what we've done to get there. This is all found in 'Time Stands Still'.

‘Time Stands Still’ explores the crossroads of living a conventional life as opposed to diving into the voyeuristic world of recording the horrors of humanity at war. Protagonist photographer, Sarah Goodwin (Rebecca Rocheford Davies) is brought home by her long term partner and fellow journalist and writer, James (Richard Sydenham) after being injured in a roadside blast in Iraq. Then enter Sarah’s agent Richard (Noel Hodda) with his much younger pregnant girlfriend Mandy (Harriet Dyer) and watch the complicated personal choices unfold as they recuperate, rebuild and redirect their lives. It is an examination of what defines us, our deal breakers, sacrifices and compromises or do we accept that the journey we want may leave us taking that path alone in order to be true to our desires. Can we give other people what they want and at what cost? It’s more complicated than that in so many ways- this is a play with layers.

In terms of acting, the women in this play are outstanding in presenting the complexities and dichotomy of feminist choices. Margulies writes his women well and Rocheford Davies and Dyer do them great justice in their portrayals. Hodda and Sydenham’s characters were generally well-executed although sometimes I felt they lapsed slightly in nailing belief, especially when subtlety was called for. The other criticism would have been the American accent work that felt contrived and inconsistent and sometimes detracted from otherwise strong performances. Once again, the women of the play had a mastery of control here and made the play much more believable and built tension with skill and honest deliberation. The boys did pull the big moments out of the bag most of the time and certainly you couldn’t criticise their energy, focus or intensity.

And as a side note, the last time I saw Noel Hodda on stage was when I was 16 and at high school and saw him play Kenny in ‘The Removalists’ in the mid-80's. It was one of the first times I saw live theatre and suddenly engaged me in a way I had rarely experienced before- three dimensions, live action- a voyeur of the slice of life. It excited me. Up until then, plays had been books you read in class taking turns having your class mates butcher characters and lines in their lacklustre, monotonous reading until you wanted to poke your eyes out with a stick. It is fair to say that seeing live theatre started my own journey of living and loving this form and it is why I am so passionate about making sure theatre is accessible to the next generation. So just a little shout out to Noel Hodda, Williamson and even the designers of that play back in 84. I still have Kenny's t-shirt of "Get Loose With The Moose" burned into my memory.

Back to 'Time Stands Still', Lucilla Smith's set design, constructed by Michael Watkins was beautifully crafted in creating this Williamsburg loft, an open, trendy space, capturing the essence of this world and letting the characters interact with and within their environment with natural ease. Teegan Lee’s lighting also falls into this category and I loved some of the silhouettes cast in the window and its changing time shifts and seasonal variety.

I don’t think you’ll leave this play with burning visceral impressions or thinking it’s the most powerful thing you’ve ever seen (perhaps that’s the other reason realist drama has played second fiddle to the contemporary aesthetic) but I definitely think you’ll get your money’s worth, you’ll be supporting some good independent theatre and you will engage in a thought-provoking piece.

And that should never go out of fashion.

CATHODE RAY TUBE’S ‘The Great Lie of the Western World’ dissected by me

‘The Great Lie of the Western World’ is the latest offering from collective Cathode Ray Tube currently showing at the Tap Gallery.

Cathode Ray Tube is the love child of Alistair Powning, Jessica Donoghue and Michael Booth and they specialise in writing, producing and acting in their own work. This is the second production of theirs I’ve seen and there is an improvement in writing in this play- more connected relationships, better use of the natural ‘voice’ of the male characters and at times, some witty dialogue.

I am appreciative of the drive and creativity of this collective and I think over time, as they hone their craft, they will write much more sophisticated and natural works that perfectly capture not only their skill set and agenda but also rely on less contrived dilemmas and thin twists. It will stop trying to be clever and it will just be.

I guess this comment stems from the tenuous premise of the narrative- a vigilante angel (O’Donoghue) and Jesus figure (Booth) gate crash the house of Simon (Powning) and his girlfriend Fiona (Kate Skinner), wander around the streets of Marrickville, force him to confess his gambling addiction, get Fiona to love herself and reconnect the lovers before heading off on their next Highway to Heaven style mission.  They didn’t quite pull off the story- at times it felt more cheesy than poignant, especially when Jesus-figure, Emerson (Michael Booth) is trying to inspire confidence in the other characters and get them to confess their ‘sins’. However, when the boys were bantering, it felt far more truthful. And the acting of Jessica Donohue and Kate Skinner were especially strong.

This is a talented ensemble but it needs to be less indulgent and more controlled. I know Cathode Ray Tube fight using a director but I don’t think they’d necessarily compromise their spontaneity by using one, especially when they are so heavily involved in every step of the process. Don’t dismiss what an experienced outside eye could bring to your work. I have no doubt the right director could help refine the delivery of dialogue, focus issues, timing lapses, tighten the interaction between characters and perhaps even help in the editing of the script through the workshopping and rehearsal process.

Having said all of that, I will admit I am probably ten years too old to really appreciate this play. 'The Great Lie of the Western World' seems to be aimed at the mid 20’s to the mid 30’s demographic. And clearly being one of the few sober people in the audience at the time didn’t help any. As much as I was entertained/annoyed by the pantomime interaction of the audience, “he’s coming for you- ooh here he comes..” or the gamut of emotional sounds in response to lines or action or even the conversations in the second row about breaking up with your hairdresser were a fascinating insight into the life that I must have missed 15 years ago, it was clear this play was not really going to inspire the response in me that it did for others in the audience.

Honestly, if you’re under 35, you’ll probably enjoy the relaxed nature of the play and the attempted cleverness will delight you in many ways. Over 35’s, this one is probably not for you.

It's got potential, it's got legs but it is wonky on its feet.

SIREN THEATRE’S THE NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM dissected by me

Ah…Irish drama. Such beautiful verse and dialogue, such darkly comic writing with a hint of mysticism, such a propensity to take human hopes and shatter the feck out of them.

Segue way into ‘The New Electric Ballroom’.

Enda Walsh’s play explores the lives of three Irish women in a remote fishing village and their fishmonger visitor, Patsy, and the perilous enterprise of giving into the first stages of love and the consequences of dashed hopes and dreams, where shame and disappointment define your destiny.

Many countries have a distinctive style of writing, whether thematically or stylistically. Irish drama, from my own ignorant viewpoint, seems to give its characters a glimpse into the light, a glimmer of happiness before the clouds roll in and piss all over it and in the process, allows its audience to laugh at the absurd, heighten the mundane and create a sense of the supernatural. I love it and here I claim my own dark sense of humour and Irish heritage and, like most Australians, there is an appreciation of the comic and poetic expression of these themes.

It is because of the richness of language and cadence of delivery that it takes a very skilled and experienced director and cast to be able to communicate the complexities of the drama. Director Kate Gaul didn’t completely master the play as evidenced in the first 30 minutes but it did get there in the end.

The rapid fire dialogue of Breda (Odile Le Clezio) and Ada (Jane Phegan) as they hug the door with their backs to the audience in the opening scene means the dialogue all rolls into one blur and you spend some time playing catch up. In fact the first half hour lacks clarity- either in the rhythm of the play or in the direction of the narrative such as when Ada tells us about the events that transpired when she was riding back from work and starts on the initial patterns of storytelling, we as an audience are expecting to head in one direction but the writer cleverly manipulates and diverts our focus as he sees fit. None of these stories are random and in fact they become beautiful metaphors for what is to come and I feel like Gaul didn’t quite connect all the dots in planting these ideas so we don’t lose the coherency of the threads.

But once you understand the pattern of the play- that ‘light bulb’ moment, you can then sit back and enjoy what is to come. And for that I think you can thank Justin Smith as Patsy. Smith brings this play thoroughly to life- his energy, skill, focus and hypnotic vocals meant that for a brief pocket in time, we all fell in love with him, just as writer and director would hope. By setting him up like this, when they pull out the rug we really feel the loss.

The revelations of the second half redeem any confusion from the first half and for this reason I didn’t mind having to work as an audience member in figuring out what was going on, although I will add a little more control in the choices of the first 30 minutes would have made this play a must see. Tom Bannerman's design enhances this dark insular world and I do love the old school or retro choices that suggest these are characters trapped in their past.

I do hope ‘The New Electric Ballroom’ pulls a profit for Siren Theatre Company under the patronage of the Griffin Independent season. It is a good play directed and performed by a generally good cast.

And as I mentioned in my review of ‘Terminus’, when is Australian writing going to get the funding and development it needs so we can consistently shape and refine our own poetic and theatrical national, social and cultural agenda?

DARLINGHURST THEATRE’S THE PARIS LETTER dissected by me

I’m tempted to just send you all to Kevin Jackson’s Theatre Diary and read his review of this play because I doubt I can say it any better.

But that’s cheating so let me break it down for you.

The success of theatre is often reliant on a number of variables coming together to create a piece of magic for the audience. There’s the writing. Actors are often at the mercy of the script. If you’ve got great material, quite a bit of the work is done for you. Then add the director and the vision that he or she will bring to the text (sometimes even reinventing the text altogether ala Stone and crew). Then that vision is hopefully communicated in the acting, design, and technical and that all of that is played out in the right stage. Maybe a dramaturg helps. Maybe the audience is exactly the right demographic for the show or ‘imbibed’ (Cameron Woodhead- that’s for you) enough alcohol to be open to everything but not so drunk to think the show is interactive. Maybe the issues of the show resonate, maybe the planets align.

All I can say about ‘The Paris Letter’ is that none of things happened in this show.

You know I’m loathed to hit the little guy hard but gee, what were they thinking in the creative decisions of this show?

Let’s start with the script. Jon Robin Baitz’ play about two central characters, one flamboyantly gay man, Anton, and his once lover and now repressed friend Sandy and their journey from the 1960’s to the early 21^st century, sounds like it would be a winner for the Mardi Gras season and certainly the full house of men in the audience members suggested that on paper, they made a good choice. Really?

I tell you the best part for me was that I didn’t have to queue for the ladies (I was one of the 4 women in the whole audience). Apart from that, this play had few redeeming features. For a play written in 2004, it felt dated. A gay man, who is living in New York in 2002, with a gay step-son, gay friends and gay acquaintances, with a personal fortune of millions who feels repressed? Hmmm. Bad enough that it started with the aimless wandering of one character who only stopped to snort cocaine from the kitchen table before he shot himself and then finished with Anton grinding sleeping tablets into Sandy’s whisky and killing him. You don’t often get such melodramatic bookending. And that’s just the first and last 5 minutes, not to mention the 2 hours between.

Director Stephen Coyler must have felt he was directing for the Theatre Royal. In 1890. That might explain the melodrama or the musical theatre expressions, mugging constantly for the audience. This was best encapsulated in the performance of Peter Cousens as Anton. In costume, expression, mincing gay vocals- it was Are You Being Served, Mr Humphries for the stage. Nicholas Papademetriou’s portrayal of Sandy lacked belief or conviction. At least his psychiatrist character channelled some talent. And Susie Lindeman’s Betty Boop portrayal of Katie was the nail in the coffin.

Best performer in an otherwise problematic show was Caleb Alloway as young Sandy. It’s ironic in the program notes that he states he’s going off to do more acting study at The Actors Centre. Note to Mr Alloway- you may the only one in the cast who probably doesn’t need to.

Yes, it’s harsh. But I do want to make the point that all voices have a place in the theatre. It is not that this is a ‘gay’ play that makes it a problem. It is a poorly written and executed play that make it a problem. Can’t we give our gay community and other audience members who want to support a diversity of voices something more intelligent and layered than this? Angels in America anyone?

And as Kevin Jackson stated, let’s also give it better luggage when travelling to France, darling. That may have been the biggest travesty of all.

GRIFFIN THEATRE’S 'THE BOYS' dissected by me

It’s taken a while to post this- apologies to all impatient fans of the dissections, especially as the season has officially finished but as I saw this in its second last show, there didn’t seem to be a pressing need to rush it to the presses and damn it, sometimes life gets in the way.

But to all who saw this, you would recognise what a good production this was. Not flawless, but certainly worth a viewing.

‘The Boys’, in its first run 20 years ago, actually saved the Griffin Theatre from financial ruin. How fitting, now the Stables is resplendently upgraded that we revisit this play (although am I the only one who is scared of falling down those stairs every time I leave the theatre?). Written by Gordon Graham, it is a powerful examination of male violence, especially towards women. Nothing new there- it’s a theme constantly highlighted in our art and our lives, but this dark play also focuses on the women who don’t want to believe the men in their lives could be capable of such hatred, even when in their core they know it to be true. And by keeping most of the violence off stage, it makes the contemplation and consequences of this brutality actually far more vivid to its audience.

Director Sam Strong has successfully managed to bring this structurally non-linear but primarily realistic play into the 21^st century whilst still keeping the essence of the original script. For a young man who looks like he could hardly have been born when the first production was staged, there is a maturity in his ability to reinvent this play for a contemporary audience whilst still maintaining so much of the original. Perhaps it is his ability to collaborate intelligently with the writer, his cast and production team and those who brought it to life first time around. It’s lovely not having the ego of the director overtly interfere with the production but trusting his team to all take ownership of the play in delivering an authenticity to the work and let them deliver his vision and the play with integrity and passion.

One of the most striking elements of the play was Renee Mulder’s exceptional set design of the sunburnt backyard with the iconic hills hoist, the high tin fence and gate, locked to keep people in or out. The symbolic use of this cycle of poverty, desperation and damage was at the very heart of ‘The Boys’ and as an audience I never felt I needed to be anywhere else to see the action unfold- it was the perfect representation of this world. Nothing grows here that isn’t neglected or at the mercy of the harshest of conditions. Unable to flourish, nothing is designed to nurture it and ultimately it is the deadening of this environment that drives all who live there to either resent or suffer in the dirt of their conditions. This was further enhanced by the assaulting sound design of Kelly Ryall and lighting of Verity Hampson who never left us in doubt of the turmoil of the action encapsulated in the groaning harshness of these design choices.

As a design sideline for a moment, was there also not a delicious pleasure in watching the hapless audience members sitting right next to the couches who had to look like the action taking place next to them didn't affect them at all in their embarrassed spotlight, or was that just me?

It would be easy to ‘endgame’ the stakes in this play when performing it- the violence is raw and constant. But the actors find some texture in their roles, moments of softness belie the fleeting hopes that give way to entrenched misogyny and brutality. As I said earlier, the play is not without some flaws- I felt Jeanette Cronin played the mother as a caricature at times, pushing it just a little too hard and sometimes Josh McConville’s accent sounded a bit cockney laddish but the power of his performance meant you forgave the lapses in vocal or accent control- such was the strength of his ability to inhabit the character of Brett. Eryn Jean Norvill’s Nola didn’t quite pull of the last monologue- the rhythm felt sluggish, but once again, for the most part she did an exceptional job in making us believe her portrayal. The cast should be commended in bringing us into this world and delivering a powerful and disturbing portrayal of boys who are left to define their masculinity without appropriate male guardians to then rebel against the only people in their lives who have tried to guide, shape, need, nurture or manipulate them, the women.

I hope you got to see this play when it was on. It was a play that delivered and reaffirms that Griffin is one of the most exciting places to see theatre in Sydney. 

DOUBLE DISSECTION: Belvoir’s ‘Babyteeth’ and Factotum’s ‘Hedda Gabler’.

This may seem like cheating that I am offering my opinions on what seems like two very different plays. Maybe it is. Isn’t it nice I don’t have to follow anyone’s rules? But there is a point to it if you care to continue.

‘Babyteeth’, commissioned by and showing at Belvoir St Theatre was written by Rita Kalnejais in 2011 and is directed by Eamon Flack. It is the story of 14 year old cancer victim, Milla and the people in her life- her parents, violin teacher, neighbour and boyfriend.

‘Hedda Gabler’, Henrik Ibsen’s classic play, premiered in 1891 and is now showing at the Tap Gallery for Factotum Theatre Company, directed by Liz Arday. It explores the story of Hedda, her recent marriage, her independent spirit, affected by social constraints and status and its ultimate consequences on her and those around her.

But I don’t really want to focus on the stories of each play- that’s not really my thing. I’ve said before, if you want to know what the story is about, go and read the press release or the blurb on the back of the show flyer. For me it’s about the experience of both plays for the audience (or on me in the audience if you will) and that’s why I’ve thrown them together.  I want to address the same thing about each show- the lack of tension.

So, to all those people who hate teachers, stop reading now because I’m going to put my teacher hat on and give you a little lesson on tension and audience engagement.

Ever wondered why you felt ambivalent about a show, why it may have been interesting but you weren’t moved by the plight of the characters or didn’t really care what happened to them in the end? Well there’s a good chance the show was missing tension.

Tension is the thing that draws you into the action, creates anticipation about events, relationships, choices, objectives, intent- it lies in the tactics, the obstacles, the subtext, the subtleties of the action. And it can take many different forms- inner, comic, sexual, etc. It makes you care about what happens in the play.

So why did ‘Babyteeth’ seem like it had all the ingredients but wasn’t quite cooked? The acting was good (a special mention to Eamon Farren although all cast were strong). Robert Cousin’s  rotating stage design was a lovely metaphor for the cycle of events and a great vehicle for the constant changes in location and yet still reinforcing the lives of this intimate group of characters bound by the events unfolding in this house. In fact the technical elements all enhanced the story and Flack brought out the eccentricities of the characters- the prescription medicated mother, steady injectable dad, drug dealing boyfriend, ditzy blonde pregnant neighbour, cantankerous Latvian violin teacher and his small protégée and the terminally ill protagonist.

I think the answer then lies in the writing. Kalnejais has focused her energies on painting these colourful characters and it is not until we get to the end of the play, with Milla and Moses (her boyfriend Farren) lying in bed contemplating death that we feel our first twangs of tension- a concern for the lives of these people. The ending is the strongest part of the play but for what is almost 2 and a half hours in length, this is a long time to wait. There's too long spent on the gags and not enough on the tension between the characters and their choices, hopes and disappointments. Whilst the comedy elements are interesting and my attention didn’t really wane, which suggests that Kalnejais has all the makings of a good writer, the writing just hasn’t quite reached the maturity of developing the drama in the comedy. The eccentricities outweigh the emotion.

Now onto Factotum’s ‘Hedda Gabler’. Believe it or not, it gives me no pleasure to kick the little guy. I don’t want to ‘shit’ all over the small independent co-op group, struggling for audience. I respect the courage to stage work, perform in the public arena and all the time and effort they have invested in the show. So I will write the following as kindly as I can.

‘Hedda Gabler’ is a play strewn with tension in its writing but unfortunately director Arday has made the choice to turn the play into a melodrama. The problem with doing this, playing the objectives and attitudes of the characters in such an obvious way, with other characters pretending not to notice, is that there’s no suspense left, no anticipating what may happen next. It becomes a latent interpretation of the characters and in a social setting of the late 1800’s, what you mean should probably be more hidden. Here is an environment where you are often talking about anything but what you really want to talk about. It's what under the surface that makes it a powerful exploration of social relationships, personal needs and wants and how to manipulate people to get what you want with subtle power shifts and plays. So if you expose the protagonist as a villain immediately and constantly, we see the ending a mile off and what’s at stake for us? This is best captured when Hedda holds the gun to her temple and your audience started sniggering. It’s probably not the effect you want.

You can, of course, play it anyway you want. But there is a cost and in this case, it is at the expense of tension.

But there are a couple of actors who really tried to bring it- Richard Hillier and Lana Kershaw. And I encourage all the creative team to keep trying and learning and experimenting with their craft. I also suggest you call in a few experienced and trusted colleagues to look at your work and offer a fresh and honest perspective so you can continue to learn and grow and hopefully succeed.

And there endeth the lesson on tension. Regardless of style or form, find the tension, play with it, manipulate it but whatever you do, don’t forsake it.