Apparently this was based on an Ibsen play, and while the names and a certain, possibly spurious, 'you see it because you expect it', Scandinavian sensibility to the drama attest to that, it felt very much like a contemporary work; moreover, while its themes and characters are universal, the setting is (for the most part) naturalistically Australian. Cass mentioned that one of her friends had described it as quite televisual and compared it to an HBO production, which I think is a good analogy, not least because of the transparent (glass or maybe perspex) wall behind which nearly all of the action takes place - a staging technique done to death nowadays, particularly by the Malthouse, but effective here.
It's tightly written and quite simple in many ways, drawing on familiar themes and dramatic structures (most notably, the reverberating effects of past misdeeds and trauma in the present day), but the structuring is elegant, and the events of its second half have a genuine emotional impact, including the final, quietly sad, out-of-the-box conversation between Hjalmar (Ewen Leslie - impressive) and Gina (Anita Hegh - equally so), which is partly due to the neat, unadorned way that it's pulled together and partly thanks to the very strong performances from the whole cast, who are able to carry the dramatic moments and convince us of the reality of their characters throughout. Also - there was a real duck on stage, which was more a novelty than anything else, but still kind of cool. It's by no means a perfect play (or production) - Gregers comes through strongly, but sort of just disappears after performing his main plot function of revealing the secret at the heart of events to Hjalmar, for example - but still, it was very good.
(w/ Cass and Erandathie)
It's tightly written and quite simple in many ways, drawing on familiar themes and dramatic structures (most notably, the reverberating effects of past misdeeds and trauma in the present day), but the structuring is elegant, and the events of its second half have a genuine emotional impact, including the final, quietly sad, out-of-the-box conversation between Hjalmar (Ewen Leslie - impressive) and Gina (Anita Hegh - equally so), which is partly due to the neat, unadorned way that it's pulled together and partly thanks to the very strong performances from the whole cast, who are able to carry the dramatic moments and convince us of the reality of their characters throughout. Also - there was a real duck on stage, which was more a novelty than anything else, but still kind of cool. It's by no means a perfect play (or production) - Gregers comes through strongly, but sort of just disappears after performing his main plot function of revealing the secret at the heart of events to Hjalmar, for example - but still, it was very good.
(w/ Cass and Erandathie)
