Actually pretty good, even though a bit uneven in the mixing of the relatively naturalistic action of the plot and the more abstract elements of the staging (although it did boast one of the best scene transitions that I can recall ever seeing, from storm to abstract beach, generating a Ganzfeld-type effect which serves the action well, and the opening flare of the play within a play of A Midsummer Night's Dream was outstanding too).
I didn't know the play before - written in the 80s, set in the summer between '67 and '68 - and wondered whether some of the dialogue had been strategically cut (not an uncommon Malthouse-production move) to generate greater discontinuity and spaces within which meanings could be created, or even if not, how much of what was made legible through the acting and staging but not explicit in the dialogue was written into the text of the play. Either way, I also thought the version we did get was impressively economical in bringing to life the three sets of families (each made up of a husband, wife and child, with that third absent in one case) and setting them all in motion.
(w/ trang)
I didn't know the play before - written in the 80s, set in the summer between '67 and '68 - and wondered whether some of the dialogue had been strategically cut (not an uncommon Malthouse-production move) to generate greater discontinuity and spaces within which meanings could be created, or even if not, how much of what was made legible through the acting and staging but not explicit in the dialogue was written into the text of the play. Either way, I also thought the version we did get was impressively economical in bringing to life the three sets of families (each made up of a husband, wife and child, with that third absent in one case) and setting them all in motion.
(w/ trang)
