Life can be bleak, banal and even a bit absurd when you eke out your existence in a wire cage. Vassily (Frank Woodley) and Viktor (Simon Yates) know this. Living in an undefined cell of the Orwellian Room 101 variety, they dream about the outside world.
Anna Cordingley’s set for this Sydney Festival
production – an endearing tragi-comedy examining the lives of two
prisoners coping with their lot and forging an unlikely kinship in order
to survive – is appropriately sparse, while the characters’ grey prison garb and the sci-fi-like glyphs on their flesh convey the idea that they are tabulae rasae – just two of many blank slates in an institution. A mechanical monotone voice from a PA system and a repetitive industrial beeping noise also add to this well-devised prison design package.
The pervasive physicality of Woodley’s Chaplin-like fumbles and Yates’s acrobatics effectively counter the hollowness of their world. Combined with a script that weaves harrowing, heart-warming, funny and nonsensical cadences, this dark tale is injected with a sublime energy that is sure to get under your skin even as it entertains.
Amidst all this gestural action, there is also something terrifyingly convincing revealed in the duo’s eyes: Woodley’s gaze conveys Vassily’s wide-eyed vulnerability and mischief; and Yates’ dark, narrowed and steely eyes reveal Viktor’s jaded wits and military-like roughness. The dynamic of this pairing is not unlike that of George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men, though with its own affecting blend of irrationalities and empathies.
Some real heart and refreshing lightness comes from scenes of effortless simplicity, which include interactions with a cockroach friend and imagining sitting in a bean-bag over the wall. These scenes really are touching, and give the impression of reaching for and clinging onto a security blanket within Inside’s dark world.
Other, more chaotic scenes aptly employ frenetic lighting, sound and music to impress the violence of real and psychological chaos upon theatre patrons. Special mention must be made of the crude warden, a cardboard face, with his leering eyes and incessant lip-licking speech, who proves to be a psychological weapon of incredible, creepy power.
Inside is not without its shortcomings; the episodic break-up, while seeming to suit the physical and psychological parameters of the play, leaves one wanting a little more narrative cohesion. In addition, a musical epilogue (that admittedly does garner deserved laughs) feels a little tacked on.
Inventive design, hyper-aware physicality, pathos and eccentricity meld to provide an original and stirring consideration of the tropes around freedom and incarceration. While the laughs are mainly of the awkwardly and terrifyingly funny kind than than the ha-ha kind (there are some, and good ones), they are nonetheless well enjoyed.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Inside
Cast: Frank Woodley and Simon Yates
Production Stage Manager: James Savage
Director: Russell Fletcher
Lighting Designer: Niklas Pajanti
Sound Design: Steven Gates
Production Manager: Michael Jankie
Producers: Kevin Whyte, Claire Hammond and Georgia Hardwick
Set Builder: Rob Oliver
All original music composed by Steven Gates
The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park
4 – 27 January
Sydney Festival 2013
www.sydneyfestival.org.au
5 – 27 January
