Hilary Bell's 1996 play is probably still her masterpiece, a provocative confrontation about a 9 year old girl in a small town in Tasmania who's implicated in a murder investigation, and the effects this has on her parents and the cop investigating. Trapping the audience in with the cast of 4, we're forced to confront the disturbing nature of childhood games, the fears of parenting and the implications of justice, over a tight 90 minutes.
Jordan Best last directed this play back in 2006 in a tightly controlled Street 2 production, and returns to the play with enthusiasm, letting her new cast find their own moments and emphases as the four find themselves sinking further and further into the darkness - the investigating cop whose professional manner starts to fall apart as he realises the implications of what he's finding, the mother who just wants to do the right thing, despite not quite knowing what that thing might be, the distant father who decides to double down on his distance, and the little girl whose night terrors may give indications of something else entirely None seek to play for sympathy - Rachel Pengilly's transformation into a 9 year old is astonishingly real as Lizzie is by turns inquisitive, playful, terrified and devious. Natasha Vickery's Angela takes over the weight of the second half of the play with strength as it becomes harder for her to balance her roles as a responsible person and a mother. Craig Alexander gives his cop an anchor of inherited authority only to lay out the cruellest moment in the last minutes of the play as he pushes Angela's buttons hard. Joel Harwood never plays for sympathy as the father whose disengagement becomes only more obvious as the story plays out, desperate to ignore what is in front of him.
The other production elements - Chris Zuber's simple junkyard set, Jacob Aquilina's stark lighting, and Matthew Webster's chilling design - all add to the tension and draw us in further.
A great provocative chiller on a February night, this is theatre that should not be missed - something to disturb the mind and the heart.
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