Shelagh Denaney's play about a teenage girl and her fractured relationship with both her mum and the various men in her life was a sensation in 1958 - rough as guts, sexually provocative and hilarious. But sixty years later, it falls flat in this production - partially due to yesterday's provication being today's old-hat, partially due to a production that holds back and feels a little distant from the hot emotional material on offer.
I've seen Taylor Ferguson be highly skilled before, but here, she's just not the rebel the role demands. She's a sullen, discontented teen,but her rebellion is never really very present in her performance - she's more mildly grumbling than actively rebelling. Her self-indulgent mum played by the equally talented Genevive Lemon never really gets the full status of a full blown monster - again, she's too damn mild. The first act in particular drags, as both mother and daughter take up with two separate men - JoshMcConville was engaging as recently as "The Sugar House" back in May, but here there's just not that much material for him to bite into, similarl for Thuso Lenwape as the daughter's merchant navy beau. Things improve in the second act as the daughter drifts into a platonic relationship with Tom Anson Mesker's gay lodger, and there's some warmth between them, but the payoff doesn't quite feel worth the setup.
Mel Page's set keeps up too much of a distance from the audience to the cast - it's not THAT different to the design for "Hir" last year, but while that got out and grabbed the audience and dragged them into the low-budget housing nightmare its cast lived in, this one feels too much like a museum where the passion never crosses into the audience - it's period, but so what. Australian accents are used but, again, don't really do much to get this material to emotionally engage the audience .
So it's another dead fish from Belvoir. Hoping for beter next time.
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