Set in a post climate change world, Tim Winton’s Signs of Life successfully reprises aspects of the novelist’s Dirt Music for the stage.
Presented by Sydney Theatre Company with Perth’s Black Swan State Theatre Company, the production strikes a decent balance between the lengthy descriptive passages of the landscape, which are Winton’s bread and butter, and dramatically charged verbal exchanges.
The audience is reacquainted with the fiercely independent Georgie Jutland (Heather Mitchell) and her maverick husband Luther Fox (George Shevtsov), living on a property near the parched-up Moore River. It’s been a month since Luther was killed in an accident, but his presence is still very real for Georgie. Her loneliness and lament is interrupted by the commotion of a car breaking down, carrying feral cat culler Bender (Aaron Pedersen) and his sister Mona (Pauline Whyman), who has just escaped a mental institution.
Bender asks to borrow some petrol to get them on their way, but Georgie is distressed about his wailing sister. The awkward standoff is handled well, not too overwrought but just enough tension to conjure anxiety. In the morning the trio breakfast together after Georgie invites them to stay with her, and the string of family secrets plaguing the minds of Bender and Mona begin to trickle out.
The barrenness of the landscape is interwoven with a desolation of meaning for Bender, who admits to Georgie that he’s got ‘No language, no sacred site, no magic Dreamtime stories. I am more fucking lost than you’ll ever be’. Georgie is left speechless and her expression is meant to symbolise the inertia of white guilt about Australian history. Mitchell did a solid job of projecting in earnest this guilt, which is a focal point for the role, mixing it with genuine fear at the start, and an undercurrent of mourning.
At times the didacticism of the script was overbearing, such as when the legitimacy of Georgie’s possession of the house is called in to doubt and she earnestly says to Bender: ‘You have as much right to be here as I do’. You could almost hear the internal groans.
There were enough genuinely funny interludes from both Pederson and Whyman to offset the devastating trauma that is slowly revealed as the action unfolds. Pederson was a pleasure to watch – oscillating between bouts of macho aggression, tender concern for his sister, and a buoyant pride in the face of Aboriginal oppression. Whyman also combined well the emotional explosiveness of the character with a more spiritual aspect.
For a narrative revolving around connections to physical places, the set design was crucial and this production delivered. The stage was subdivided into four rows, variously patterned to indicate the shifts in the ground, and distance from the property. The house itself provided a beautiful rusted and ochre backdrop, which was converted into blues and greens through the lighting when the mood shifted. The minimalist sound design also complemented the staging.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Sydney Theatre Company & Black Swan State Theatre Company present
Signs of Life
Written by Tim Winton
Designer: Zoe Atkinson
Lighting: John Buswell
Composer & Sound Designer: Ben Collins
Cast: Heather Mitchell, Aaron Pedersen, George Shevtsov and Pauline Whyman
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
2 November – 22 December
