Joe Petruzzi and Peter Houghton in The Way Things Work for Red Stitch Theatre. Photograph by Teresa Noble
The Way Things Work is a bold title. In the current complex and increasingly extreme political moment, ‘the way things work’ is an impossible mystery that many of us are desperate to unravel. The team behind this show, opening Red Stitch’s 17th season, are artists I admire and trust, and yet this title had me sceptical. Was this 90-minute two-hander going to purport to explain to us ‘the way things work’?
The answer, of course, is yes and no. This isn’t a play about ‘the way things work’, so much as it is about the way people think things work, and how these world-views relate to their actions and status in life. The action is established in the political setting of a Royal Commission involving an embattled MP, a controversial tunnel, and a certain large and influential media company. But the politics are mostly window-dressing; what writer and director Aidan Fennessy has excelled in once again is the poetic and resonant expression of deeply human drama.
Certain elements of the first act are jarring. Into Fennessy’s sparse, almost absurd set and production design, is placed what seems to be a realist drama. A minister and another public servant talk in euphemisms and suggestions about a Royal Commission and what should or shouldn’t be said about some back-room dealings they were both involved in. Aside from the occasional poetic flourish, the dialogue is realistic, and so are the performances. So why the blank white box set? Why the absurd desk plaque simply reading ‘GOVERNMENT’?
These questions are answered as the play radically morphs through its second and third act. Each new act incurs a totally different setting, and a totally new set of characters. The blank white box is an all-purpose space, and is, more than anything, a room with a closed door, behind which we are flies on the wall, watching two men (at a time) talking about things they don’t want others to hear.
The publicity notes for the show describe it as an exploration of the struggle for power ‘in whatever echelon you might happen to inhabit’. Fennessy is certainly playing with and speaking through class, but these class lines are as muddy in the play as they are in our nation – despite varying degrees of freedom, money and influence, none of these characters seems to have an upper-class background. The greatest difficulty encountered in this regard concerns cultural background – two of the six characters are Greek, and the use of accents here was a source of tension for me. This is exacerbated by the function of these characters as, to some extent, comic relief – their scene is the lightest of the three scenes by far. Whilst the writing itself is funny here, the creatives behind this show would do well to observe how much of the comedy is derived from the accent, and what the continual caricaturisation of this accent and cultural identity can tell us about the way things work in Australia with respect to racism and cultural appropriation.
A highlight of the evening for me was the beginning of the third act. After two acts where the characters and drama are linked in quite clear ways, Fennessy delivers us a delicious enigma with the reveal of his third set of characters. These characters are eventually tied back to the broader narrative in a way that is more or less satisfying, but the tension of not knowing here is delicious, and showcases Fennessy’s writing at its most poetic, and its most human.
The craft throughout is exceedingly strong. Joe Petruzzi and Peter Houghton relish the challenge of shifting between three very different characters each, and the chemistry between them is electric. Here, Fennessy has crafted the perfect Red Stitch show – a vehicle to showcase two actors at the height of their powers. And the sound design by Russell Goldsmith and lighting by Matt Scott are both tremendous; gleeful in their indulgence of the themes of power and corruption.
Anyone turning up to the theatre for political commentary, or for a show as Brechtian and direct as its title suggests, will likely be disappointed. But for human drama as gripping and poetic as it is funny, The Way Things Work is the ticket.
Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
THE WAY THINGS WORK
Written and Directed by Aidan Fennessy
Featuring Joe Petruzzi and Peter Houghton
Set and Costumes: Aidan Fennessy
Lighting: Matt Scott
Sound: Russell Goldsmith
Production and Stage Manager: Shae Attril
Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre, St Kilda
31 January – 5 March 2017
