Navigating

I have just got home after seeing Melville Theatre's latest offering of Navigating, directed by Peter Nettleton. Please go and see it. This is an intriguing and disturbing play, written by Katherine Thomson. As the partner of a Finley adjudicator, I see a LOT of plays. So far this year I have seen some very bad plays, some very good plays, and a lot of moderately good run-of-the-mill plays. Navigating definitely falls into the second category. Tonight was the opening night, and some of the scene changes could be tightened up. There were technical problems, a few lines were dropped - but these will improve during the run. The script is well written. The dialogue is tense, you need to concentrate. There are constant scene changes - not physical changes - the set remains constant throughout. Different areas are used to denote different areas of action, and it works really well. I particularly liked the use of the back-lit scrim. The acting was of a uniformly high standard, with spectactularly good performances from Jodie Hansen and Val Riches as the two main characters. Val, in particular, gave a virtuosic performance, and I congratulate Peter Nettleton on his direction. I believe that bookings for the show are very disappointing so far. It deserves full houses. Please go and see it.

‘Navigating’ is a contemporary drama by Katherine Thomson, now showing at the Melville Theatre each night at 8.00 until 20^th October.

After the pre-curtain raiser, ‘I vow to thee my country’, the opening scene shows a choir rehearsing Rabnta’s ‘The Prisoner’s Song’. These two pieces being a clue to the mix of loyalty and trickery that was to follow.

The choirmaster is Ian (Jeff Hansen), the manager of the major local industry, who is trying to obtain a few of the massive contracts connected with the new prison development.. Bea (Valerie Riches), one of his workers, finds that there has been surreptitious passing of money and secret wining and dining, and so decides that this should be exposed, along with a mistreatment of outfitters Dick (Stuart Riches) and Pam (Rosemary Longhurst) by another town businessman.

Bea and hers sister, Isola (Jodie Hansen), are already shunned by the villagers because of a boating accident decades earlier. Bea decides to approach Brent (Tim Prosser), the local news editor for support. Who is Darcy (Rebekah Ozanne) the mysterious woman in the village, is she a trouble maker or will she lend moral support?

A good tense and dramatic ending.

Director Peter Nettleton has created a multi-venue set, with movement between the sets being guided by the excellent, smoothly operated, lighting and the multitude of well recorded sound effects. The ‘sounds off’ were subtle and of just the right volume. The acting, considering the complicated script and length of the play, was excellent. Plenty of body movement and inter-actor communication. My main complaint, surprisingly, was with the multi-award winning writer’s script. The amount of flowery imagery with passages such as ‘the lies lay like oysters on the rocks’ which may read beautifully, but was certainly not the type of dialogue that one would expect to hear in a small Australian coastal village. It also made it difficult for the actors flow, and so despite their clear delivery, the pace was a little too slow throughout. Although not an ‘Under Milkwood’, the life in the town was interesting.

This was however, for the most part, a capable production and one of Melville’s best. One of which to be generally proud.

Navigating

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