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POSTED: 23 AUGUST 2011 A Quiet Night in Rangoon, by Katie Pollock | Directed by Paul Gilchrist Subtlenuance & The Spare Room | New Theatre, Newtown, Sydney | Until 10 September Set in Burma in 2007, A Quiet Night in Rangoon is Katie Pollock's new look at the saffron revolution, an uprising by the Burmese people, led mostly by Buddhist monks, against the oppressive and anachronistic military junta. Most people are familiar, to some extent, with events in Burma, due to a high-profile and dedicated political activist, Aung San Sui Kyi, who was recently released from house arrest. Pollock’s play follows Piper (Kathryn Schuback), an Australian journalist who is in Burma on a personal quest to find family connections and truths. This mostly convention-bound play assembles a number of representative characters in a symbolic space to enact vignettes that spotlight the corruption and brutality of the Burmese regime. As the narrative unfolds we trace a dramatic sequence of events, through characters and issues, by extrapolating the known facts in an attempt to make visible this history. Unfortunately, this documentation, by nature, is very much a verbal affair and thus this play seems to lack multiple dimensions. The events that occurred are somewhat emotionally charged through the characters, in particular Kitty (Aileen Huynh), who truly gained my sympathy as she is far more etched out than the other characters. Felino Dolloso is authentic as The Major — an excellent baddie, the guy you feel free to hate. But there are many characters that just don't work and seem cardboard caricatures. The play only flickers to life when it departs from reality, through the personification of The Lake (Shauntelle Benjamin) and The Net (Sonya Kerr). Benjamin is charismatic in her role and provides some genuinely thought-provoking reflections, but alas these are too few. Kerr establishes the only irony and humour in the play through her small role and has by far the most interesting lines in an otherwise pedestrian script. For the moments she is on stage we are allowed momentarily release from the otherwise tedious pace of the production. The set (Chloe Lawrence-Hartcher) is elegant and unfussy, but at the same time fails to add definition, focus or purpose to the characters. Nor does it support the frequent references to Buddhist philosophy which provide fleeting images but are never explored. Sadly there is no wider realm of myth to unpeel the people, action or nation. It is admirable and necessary for New Theatre to pursue political theatre and it is a difficult terrain. Theatre, of course, should provide the questions, not the answers, but in the work of dramatising there is a deeper act of interpretation needed. Katie Pollock's weakness here is that in 90 minutes she takes on too much and embraces too many aspects of the struggle. For me, it did not cast any new light on these horrific events and I found little emotional resonation with the documentation of the issues. Of course, no play about Burma could tell the whole story, but I came out no better informed and certainly not prodded by the central truth that may bring about a better future.
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All images: © Zorica Purlija
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