The Aspirations of Daise Morrow

Brink Productions’ The Aspirations of Daise Morrow at first looks like a play, but soon sounds like a narrative, with the characters themselves narrating every gesture and act.  This is unsurprising given that the performance transcribed verbatim Patrick White's short story, “Down at the Dump”.  Yet as a story it has something of a surreal, dream-like quality, making up for what it lacks in story arc by an active emotional impressionism, the entire narrative sounding like an extended prose poem, the author directing the reader’s focus often to the mystery in the words themselves rather than the mystery of why people act as they do.

Without wishing to give too much away, I should say that the performance’s staging, in the round, is unusual in bringing the outdoors right into the theatre.  Four suitably attired actors share (at last count) seven roles, intermittently accompanied by a similarly attired string quartet seated in the audience.  Their very active performances, all without amplification, were strong indeed, not least in terms of the prodigious feats of memory they demand in recounting long passages without overt prompting of their memories by other actors’ lines.

The Aspirations of Daise Morrow may not intrigue everybody, but it is an uncommon experience, one to which bringing your own seat cushion will only make more enjoyable.

John P. Harvey

Image: Lucy Lehmann, in The Aspirations of Daise Morrow.  Photographer: David James McCarthy.