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Set in the Pilbara town of Fury, several young people battle with their personal demons and issues. While their lives have been far from easy, the trauma of betrayals by parents and other authority figures looming large over each of them, none of them is blameless for their own choices and actions. While they feel stuck in their grim milieu of casual violence, misogyny and poverty, two desert-dwellers have visions that drive them to visit the town, to save these teens from themselves. While their arrival is initially treated with suspicion and scorn, the young people each respond in different ways, from seizing the break in routine as a catalyst to move on with their lives elsewhere, to break destructive bonds and even rescue a rescuer.
Metalhead is far from light entertainment, each scene presenting challenging material. These young lives seem blasted and destroyed before they’ve had a chance to begin, even their dreams and aspirations are stunted and blighted. Each character is difficult to pigeonhole, seeming to be based on actual people rather than around conventional theatrical types. While this is hard to watch, it must be even harder to perform, which is the main strength of this production – the consistent brilliance of the actors.
Clarence Ryan as Jake is rage incarnate, inarticulate, lost and finding targets everywhere. Ryan layers the character’s dimensions, with Jake’s vulnerability slipping through his outbursts, before being quickly hidden again. His relationship with Baloo (played by Toby Franks) is complex, founded on mutual laziness, fear and a small measure of friendship, but mostly tolerance. Chelsea Gibson’s Jackie is more than Jake’s kid sister, she physically contrasts with him while she teaches herself to box like him, in order to keep herself safe and to help her find her mum. Caitlin Jane (CJ) Hampson’s bright smile as Michaela is sweet, and totally unaware of the perils she is placing herself in by falling in love with Jake. Michaela’s dire situation, at risk from her over-protective brother, chasing after the glamour of violence and only humanised by the local coward, is amplified by Hampson’s constant chirpy sweetness in her portrayal. Michaela’s brother, Tyler, is played with miserable accuracy by Declan Brown. Into this situation step Tornina Torres’ Mercy and Ian Bolgia’s Freeman, who believe in their own mystical powers so sincerely that it convinces the audience, as well as the devastated youth of Fury, that they may hold the answers. Bolgia shocks with Freeman’s sudden bursts of rage and anguished visions, his passion beyond reason or verbal expression, while Torres brings a sense of conflicted duties to Mercy’s actions.
Cherie Hewson’s innovative set makes the most of the unconventional venue, the inner-city courtyard convincing as a decaying rural outpost. Creative thinking has developed effective lighting and set structures which support the narrative.
Director James Winter and writer Tiffany Barton eschew easy routes to neat and happy resolutions for any of the characters, leaving many lingering questions for later consideration. Hard issues affecting contemporary rural Australian youth are confronted head-on, promoting the unfairytale ideal of claiming personal responsibility for happiness, or even survival.
At a remove from the froth and bubble of many Fringe productions featuring young casts, Metalhead demonstrates the depth of passionate talent through all levels of theatrical performance that drives Western Australia’s current cultural development.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Metalhead
The Guild Courtyard, Claisebrook
FringeWorld 2015
By Tiffany Barton
Presented by Creative Collaborations
Directed by James Winter
Assistant director/Stage manager: Zane Alexander
Costumes/Set design: Cherie Hewson
Sound: Max Porotto
Choreography: Claudia Alessi
Fight choreography: Nastassja Kruger
Performed by Ian Bolgia, Declan Brown, Toby Franks, Chelsea Gibson, CJ Hampson, Clarence Ryan and Tornina Torres
14 – 22 February 2015
