Signs of Life

‘Signs of Life’ is the latest stage play by WA’s award winning writer, Tim Winton. Directed by Kate Cherry, this tale continues the life of Georgie and Lu, ten years after the end of Winton’s stunning novel ‘Dirt Music’. At a time when the WA grain farmers have lost $1.5 billion so far this year, this play is particularly relevant.

After a two-week tour of the larger WA country towns, the play is now being presented by Black Swan State Theatre Company and the Sydney Theatre Company in The Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of WA, 178 William Street, Perth.

The 100-minute performances (with NO interval) run nightly until 18^th August. Evening shows are at 7.30 pm, with matinees at 2.15 pm on Saturdays and there is a 5.00 pm show on Sunday 12^th August.

            It is a dark, moonless night, and a couple of hundred kilometres inland from Geraldton Georgie (Helen Morse) is sitting on the veranda of her isolated farmstead. Alone, and with just the glow of an oil lamp, she stares out at the dry scrub that was once a verdant thriving farm. She thinks of her husband, who has died only a few weeks earlier, and contemplates her pathetic and hopeless future.

          The northern highway passes nearby, where the trucks roar along, never stopping. Suddenly there is the sound of a rattling old car, breathing its last. Loud voices – the first that she has heard in days – are now approaching her house. From the gloom emerges a middle-aged, Aboriginal man, Bender (Tom E. Lewis - impressive) who has come to ask for some petrol for his Holden. As Georgie explains to this polite, but persistent man, that she has virtually none left, Bender’s scruffy sister, Mona (Pauline Whyman) staggers out of the dark. Cursing and swearing she settles down on the veranda and demands a cup of tea. Georgie, already uncomfortable, is taken aback but goes and makes them all a cuppa. It seems that this brother and sister have been driving around aimlessly for days.

          Mona wanders about, and returns saying how she feels the presence of another. Georgie is a little spooked as she often sits under the family tree talking to the ghost of her husband, Lu (George Shevtsov). 

          Georgie is pleased to have occasional company, but faced with this prickly partnership would rather be alone to mull over her future. However, this couple are not too keen to move on.

As always with Tim Winton, the story is beautifully constructed, one minute the script is harsh the next, comical. Perhaps this dialogue-driven play, which was almost a moved-reading, should have remained as a book. It has a fine blend of Aboriginal and farming stories, with tales of drastically diverse times and the strength to fight and endure. Each character of the play has a clear and well-defined personality. At first I feared these would be stereotypical characters, but this was proved wrong. The mingling of the storylines, and their slow unfolding, held the audience fascinated for the full 100 minutes.

The set (designer Zoe Atkinson) was in two halves. One side of the stage was a typical homestead with corrugated iron and country furniture, the other part was an abstract, stark white background, with Jackson Pollock-style, red haphazard splatters; this represented the bush and woodland. The front of stage was a dried-out, shale river bed. The conceptual family tree was created by a splitting of the background to give a ‘Magic Eye’ 3D effect, or like two tectonic plates that have sheared. It was a very clever result that allowed for lighting designer Jon Buswell to produce some wonderful eerie effects. Congratulations must also go to sound designer and composer, Ben Collins for topping off this mixture of illusions and reality.

Well acted, but as a play lacked that little bit of extra magic, still, an enjoyable night out.