Review: The Call

(Griffin Theatre Company | The Stables Theatre, Darlinghurst, Sydney | Until 6 June)

Opening stage direction: “Gary peers through the mesh of a cage. It’s unclear if he’s inside the cage or out.”

School’s out. In fact, it’s been out for a few years and you’re reaching the pointy end of life in a small Australian country town or perhaps even in the outer suburban fringes of the Big Smoke ... poor education ... mind-numbing work ... marriage ... kids ... hollow relationships ... alienation in your own backyard ... is that all there is? Not “bok, bok, bok ...” Rather “bleak, bleak, bleak ...”

Obviously not the case for everyone, but for a significant number of people not far from the truth either. And it’s life on the bleak side of the tracks that is so chillingly dissected by playwright Patricia Cornelius and Griffin Theatre in The Call.

Director Lee Lewis and assistant director Christobel Sved have assembled a quality team to play their four 20-somethings: Gary (Josh McConville), Denise (Sarah Becker), Chunk (Chris Ryan) and Aldo (Hazem Shammas). The latter three actors also double up as Gary’s workmates in three wonderfully evocative workplace scenes.

Gary, Chunk and Aldo hang out together. They pinch cars, they dabble in drugs, they get bored, they brag about the chicks they’ve picked up (or not) ... and they dream of one day becoming something, of getting out of the stupor, of finding true, long-lasting love, even if in Aldo’s case that’s a matter “getting a regular fuck, like on tap”.

But you know they’re dreaming ... though there’s a glimmer of hope in Gary’s case. He has a sensitive side that keeps popping out. He sympathises with the chooks in the battery hen farm. He cradles his new-born girl with great affection, telling her of the great things that they’ll do together (though he can’t imagine what they’ll be). He cares about Aldo and lends him money, even though he knows that it’s feeding a drug addiction that could, and does, kill him.

For Gary, hope arrives in the form of the vivacious, sensual Denise. She bubbles over with life, wants desperately to travel, to get away from Australia, away from anywhere that speaks English ... “I’m going to point and grunt.”

Overwhelming lust turns into perceived love, and though Denise is absolutely livid that their unplanned pregnancy will ruin her life plans, Gary sees it as an opportunity to turn his life into something meaningful.

It’s a desire unfulfilled. Denise becomes one of the young women she abhorred ... “girls who were top of the class who got themselves knocked up and ended up talking crap about specials on baby food ... they spend hours shuffling through tables of shit at the two-dollar shop.”

Gary moves from one mundane job to the next, desperately trying to earn enough money to keep his family afloat, casting the net more widely for that “something meaningful”. The answer to his call eventually comes completely from left field in the form of Islam: “Allah will keep me safe, I reckon. I’m not ashamed of fighting for what I believe in. What I am ashamed of is that it took me so long to believe in anything.”

The Call is fine, provocative theatre, well acted and well directed. Now, if only they could do something about the comfort of The Stables Theatre's seating ...

The actors all deliver exceptional performances, both in their main roles and in their workplace cameos.

Indeed, the strength of the scarily eerie workplace scenes — the battery hen farm, the board mill and the meat-rendering plant — with their striking presentation and powerful dialogue forms a central plank in building the mood of desperation and alienation.

Closing stage direction: "Gary peers through the mesh of a cage. It’s unclear if he’s inside the cage or out."

You’ll have to go along and work out for yourself if it’s still “bleak, bleak, bleak ...”

CLICK HERE to email Oz Baby Boomers with a comment regarding this play or review.

NOTE: Because Oz Baby Boomers values good theatre and because it appreciates the fact that good theatre can't be staged without the generous assistance of sponsors, it is pleased to acknowledge those sponsors.

In the case of The Call, Griffin Theatre Company would like to particularly acknowledge its patron and its principal sponsor:

[RETURN TO TOP]

HOME > THEATRE > ARCHIVES 2009 >