Anaconda

Image: Simon Lyndon and Damian de Montemas in Anaconda. Photo by Damon Wilder.

Whilst across town thousands of Sydney-siders twerked to Beyonce’s Mrs Carter World Tour at Allphones Arena, Anaconda opened to a nearly full house at Rock Surfers Bondi Pavilion Theatre.

It’s an odd work, tight to bursting with meaning and moral predicament. To reveal the entirety of the subject matter is to whittle away locally grown writer/director Sarah’s Doyle’s draw card and the one good reason to go and see this play. Anaconda premiered in LA at the Hollywood Fringe in 2012 where it received a nomination for Best International Show.

It comes as a surprise to this reviewer then, that so many of the elements of Anaconda are heavy handed. The action takes place amongst a metallic, monolithic metaphor where a bed and a bench in a black box might have sufficed; Max Sharam’s sound design is prevalent and pervasive with a number of audio montages aimed at advancing the tale, it’s as though perhaps too much thought has gone into Anaconda’s extremities. At its core lies a very complex, very interesting subject that might have been better left plainly exposed.

Anaconda opens with a didactic display of splintering Masonite and well-lit, silent, ‘emoting’. From here, Leeanna Walsman as Bivva and Damian de Montemas as Matty ease the viewer into a comfortable middle-class, white 30-something world where middle-of-the-road life choices loom. Will it be a baby, new decor and/or a new house?

Perhaps it’s the way in which the (mostly WAAPA trained) cast have chosen to bring the piece to life under the loose, directorial hand of writer Doyle, perhaps it’s the overtly abstracted set with its awkward entrance and exits on the long, shallow stage, or the dire lack of dramatic tension – the action is set in the aftermath of a scandal – releasing the players from any real sense of urgency; essentially what unfolds during Anaconda is 90 minutes of thought-provoking subject matter that fails to evoke any lasting emotional response.

As a sum of its parts, Anaconda is fussy in its attempts at grittiness. Despite an accomplished cast this promising piece manages to fall short of the mark.

Review: 2 stars out of 5