Blood Relations

It seems to be my lot in life to write a review for this site, hit ‘Post’, then have my computer crash at the exact same moment, losing every carefully-considered word I’ve written. This is review-mark-two. Does anyone else experience the phenomenon that your first one is always better written? Perhaps it’s a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder, and want to take a baseball bat to your computer. Anyway…

WHAT: ‘Blood Relations’ by Sharon Pollock
WHEN: Wednesday 30 April 2003, 8pm
WHERE: Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Northbridge, Perth, WA
WHO: Directed by Monica Main for Not The Mama Productions (Georgia Malone and Melissa Cantwell) featuring Leanne Page, Naomi Hanbury, Toby Malone, Lucy Eyre, Elwyn Edwards, Christine Jeffery, Mike Anthony.

Not The Mama Productions have finally provided a long-awaited follow up to their 2001 hit ‘After the Fair’ with an equally creepy, uncomfortable and blacker-than-black-comic rendering of the Lizzie Borden tale, ‘Blood Relations’ by Canadian playwright, Sharon Pollock. With another Bryan Woltjen ‘how the $%&@ did he think of that?!’ set, this is a stunning, stunning production that made me leave the theatre feeling most uncomfortable and slightly ill, despite the complete lack of on-stage violence or gore. And, no, I didn’t have one of the opening night Bloody Marys.

The story of Lizzie Borden, known colloquially as The Fall River Legend, is a true one, about a late 19th century woman living in Fall River, Massachusetts. She was accused of murdering her father and step-mother with a hatchet but, the part of the story that plunged it into legend, she was acquitted, despite all the evidence pointing to her guilt. She lived for another 30-odd years after the murders, but never once admitted to her alleged crimes.

History has been less than impartial to Lizzie, immortalising her in a poem familiar to all North Americans: ‘Lizzie Borden took and axe, gave her mother forty whacks. When the job was nicely done, she gave her father forty-one.’ Lovely.

PollockÂ’s play emulates the feel of this rhyme, reflecting its guffaw-out-loud audacity and oneÂ’s inward horror at its factual subject matter. At just over an hour and a half with no interval, itÂ’s a long sit, but dynamic direction and a superb cast have overcome this flawlessly. The play is intriguingly structured, and how exactly this is done would take me ten pages, so, heck, youÂ’ll just have to go and see it to find out.

The most refreshing thing for me about this play was the fact that the two main characters, one or both present in every scene, were female, and ballsy ones at that. Naomi Hanbury and Leanne Page play both Lizzies (again, go see the play to understand this), and lived up to, and beyond, their well-deserved reputations. Both of them are astonishing, yet completely different, performers who work together beautifully on stage, Hanbury’s passion and emotion balancing Page’s calculation impeccably. It was particularly delightful to see Leanne in this role, as I have only ever seen her previously playing giggly ditzes – Playlovers ‘Stags and Hens’ from years ago particuarly springs to mind. I’ll never see her as anything but an axe-wielding lesbian again, I swear.

The supporting cast was just as wonderful, and I was pleased to see Elwyn Edwards and Christine Jeffery as the ill-fated Mr and Mrs Borden. These are two marvellous older performers who I’ve heard a lot about, but not seen nearly enough of. Toby Malone was clearly relishing his role as the slimy step-uncle Harry, and I was mighty disappointed not to see him get the chop at the end. Lucy Eyre as Emma beautifully trod the line between uptight spinster and equally-desparate sibling to Lizzie. I found it a little disconcerting, however, her visual similarity, through hair and costume, to Jeffery. I initially thought, ‘oh, she’s related to the step-mother, and Lizzie isn’t’, and it was only my recollection of the script which rectified this. Did this bother any one else? Mike Anthony was excellent in the smaller roles of Dr Patrick and The Defence Lawyer, and differentiated so well between his two characters that I found myself consulting my programme to find out who the ‘eighth’ cast member was.

The script is interesting and cleverly constructed overall, but I found the ending a little awkward and unsatisfying. My only thoughts as to how this may have been rectified, would be to block that final scene directly downstage, rather than up, which I felt weakened its impact a little. Also, I would like to have seen it slowed down to increase the intensity of Lizzie’s new ‘accusation’ - to leave the audience wondering if Lizzie was now going to take the axe to Emma, rather than just feeling we’d witnessed another petulant sibling spat that was going to blow over. Please, see the show and if you disagree with me on this point, say it out loud here. I would be very interested to hear another’s point of view, and be pulled up on my observations.

The accent work is impeccable, a testament to Julia MoodyÂ’s coaching - Page and Anthony in particular rise superbly to the challenge of switching rapidly and seamlessly between North American and Irish accents. The afore mentioned Bryan Woltjen set design was ingenious and effective, my personal favourite being the chicken wire stretched below the lighting rig, lowering the ceiling of the warehouse-like PICA space, and turning the stage into an oppressive, narrow and eye-bending farmhouse. Two projected screens at the sides were simple windows at first, but at two points during the play the rough cross-hatch design flew away, as though boards were being removed, revealing peering eyes at one time, and silently moving mouths at another. This was really creepy and visually very effective, but I felt it was too distracting, and detracted from the action we needed to pay attention to in the middle.

Despite the whoÂ’s-who of Perth theatre opening night crowd, the audience was not capacity which was disappointing. I have a feeling that this will be one of those beg, borrow and steal a ticket in the last week shows, so please GO EARLY to avoid missing out. This is as good as Perth independent, and indeed professional, theatre gets, and this classy production is more than deserving of your support. It runs at PICA until the 10 May.

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