Review: Walking by Apple Tree Creek

(ThinIce & Sydney Theatre Company Next Stage | Wharf 2, Walsh Bay, Sydney | Until 20 June)

What is happening in Western Australia? It seems that many recent Sydney productions contain an actor, designer or member of the creative team who has crossed the Nullabor to share their talents.

And hooray for that. ThinIce, under the leadership of Matthew Lutton — who directs this current production — is a Perth-based company that aims to examine and test the boundaries of theatre. The Duel is their interpretation of a comparatively small but powerful section of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s seminal novel The Brother Karamazov.

The chapter, from Book Six: The Russian Monk, is actually titled From the Life of the Departed in God the Hieroschemonach the Elder Zosima, Collated from His Own Words by Aleksey Fyodorovich Karamazov, and the majority of this piece comes from the section A Reminiscence of the Youth and Early Manhood of the Elder Zosima, While Yet in the Secular World. A Duel.

Wright, whose works include the stunning War of the Roses (STC and Perth Festival), has captured the essence of Dostoevsky’s exploration of one man’s path in life, his discourse on the nature of guilt, confession, transformation and self-discovery.

Staged within a diorama-like box with no door and no obvious exit, The Duel plays like a recitation of the chapter, with the characters alternately holding focus or observing. It is at once static and startlingly physical.

Four “storytellers” interact to relate the tale of the young Zosima (Luke Mullins), a man who has spent his youth in a state of entitlement and arrogance within the Cadet Corps in St Petersburg.

Having considered and baulked at the idea of commitment to a woman, only to be enraged when she goes on to marry another, Zosima contrives a situation in which he challenges her new husband to a duel.

The night before the duel, Zosima experiences an epiphany after a senseless act of brutality towards his servant. Remorseful, he attends the duel only to beg forgiveness of his opponent.

Determining to leave the military and take on the life of a monk, Zosima’s actions become widely known in the community and he experiences semi-celebrity status. In particular, a Mysterious Visitor (Brian Lipson) befriends him.

As the connection between the men is revealed, the audience is invited to reflect on how the torture of shame can be as agonising or paralysing as any physical pain, and a spotlight is shone on the universality and timelessness of human struggle.

The Brothers Karamazov is set in early-19th- century Russia, yet the themes and musings of the characters are as current as if they were written last week, and as relevant to modern Australia as they were to Russia in 1826. The idea of the human desire for completeness and security driving individuals into a solitariness and self-interest that isolates and shrinks one’s world — and the fear and suspicion this type of striving engenders — could be describing modern-day Western society.

Four actors of incredible talent share this small space. As the Actors, David Lee Smyth and Renee McIntosh play several roles, eliciting as much power and emotion from their silences as from their actions.

Brian Lipson as the Mysterious Visitor commandingly evokes the agonised recollections of a guilty soul. That he so thoroughly draws the audience to him makes his shocking revelations so much more devastating and disturbing.

Luke Mullins’ Zosima is one of the finest characterisations in recent memory. His presence is alternately hypnotic, compelling and repugnant. Mullins has an extraordinary ability to convey the slightest emotion, and one gets the impression he bares his own soul in the process. He is, quite simply, astounding.

Zosima’s violent thrashings, the hilarious and slightly discomfiting dancing of all actors, and the sculpture-like stillnesses make this production an incredible study in physicality and movement. Lutton’s direction is inspired and innovative. I certainly hope that his directorial STC debut is the start of a long association.

The Duel is theatre that intrigues, challenges and inspires. Unfathomable yet accessible, it is an experience of immense beauty and power. As Dostoevsky writes, “… here the earth’s transitory countenance and eternal truth have come into contact with each other.”

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