Thin Ice in collaboration with Griffin Theatre Company and Company B Belvoir produced Love Me Tender for the Perth International Arts Festival 2010.
Inspired by Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, and set in a dreamed-up version of the Australian backyard, five actors tease out the story of a father and daughter. With director Matthew Lutton this is a captivating piece of theatre and lucidly written by Tom Holloway that draws from the experiences of the Black Saturday bushfires, raunch culture, pre-teen sexuality and domestic anxieties. The trauma that the whole of Australia is privy to via the media of the natural disaster that is bushfires is personalised and somewhat healed in this significant work. With the use of Greek chorus or ensemble members, actors Kris McQuade and Arky Michael expertly paint vivid pictures in the audience’s minds of birthing, pre-teen sexuality and compromised life. Colin Moody is the father, and as a firefighter in the final stages of the play is painfully torn between his beloved daughter and his country. Moody is understated and delivers the highs and lows of the part with finesse. Belinda McClory as the mother assertively explores the raunch culture and this is a deftly delivered performance of repression and wildness. Luke Hewitt completes the actors and is convincing in his role.
Set designer Adam Gardnir created a ‘post-modernistic playpen of Australian domesticity’ – the Aussie lawn complete with sprinklers above and below to capture this story under the theatrical microscope. It is a simple yet inspired design and McQuade especially inhabits the space comfortably with her earthy, grounded and visceral performance.
Kelly Ryall as composer and sound designer has articulated the production with the natural bush ambient music and then subtle tortured cries layering the production hauntingly. Love Me Tender is so searing in its topicality and theatrical contemporariness, maintaining theatre to be constantly relevant to today.
Lutton has again delivered a theatrical experience of high calibre to Perth and later national audiences with its stage articulations through to the nuances of the subliminal journey – this is what makes his work passionate and always a hot ticket to hold!
Love Me Tender
By TOM HOLLOWAY
THINICE, COMPANY B BELVOIR AND GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY IN ASSOCIATION WITH PICA
Sat 20 Feb to Sat 6 Mar, 8.00PM
