Between the Streetlight and the Moon

The new Kings Cross Theatre is a tiny space up four steep flights of stairs in a building that overlooks the Cross’s famous Coca Cola sign. For this production the acting area cuts the audience into two and as many old chairs as possible have been crammed together. No problem – except it's one act running for 105 minutes and the only possible exit for 50% of the audience is via the stage. Oh, the joys of the fringe!

There’s no doubt Melita Rowston’s play, shortlisted for the 2016 Patrick White Playwright Award, is a complex and meaningful piece. With many a nook and byway, it tells how Zadie (Lucy Miller) is eventually sacked from her London art teaching job by Janet (Suzanne Pereira) for not finishing her much discussed book on Edouard Manet and his likely affair with painter Berthe Morisot. 

Zadie is thick with her sexy French student Dominique (Joanna Downing) and with Barry (Ben McIvor), a young Western Sydney painter who has come to London for instant fame. Jeff (Lani Tupu), a wildly successful artist who has complications with Zadie, completes the cast.

From the opening projection (and discussion) of an 1865 close-up painting of a woman’s genitals, we are being asked to give art and the artists involved our full attention. And the cast, led by Lucy Miller, blonde hair streaming, take many a turning before she is revealed as more artist than academician. 

Dominque’s French accent is a hurdle, at times so thick it only adds to the complications of the plot. 

The setting by Jeremy Allen is of a high standard, though when we get to Paris the requirement of the Seine running through the scene would defeat most designers. His solution is unlikely to please every theatregoer. 

Benjamin Freeman on live piano provides linking music throughout, and very beautiful it is.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Clare Hawley