Blackrock

The latest production of Blackrock (nee A Property of the Clan) is a result of a collaboration between Queensland University of Technology and La Boite Theatre Company. It sees eight third year acting students join three seasoned professionals on stage to bring to life Nick Enright’s AWGIE award-winning drama. It’s a harrowingly emotional story requiring focus, commitment and a lot of trust between the cast and crew.

Sandra Gattenhof, Discipline Leader - Dance, Drama, Music in the Creative Industries Faculty, QUT said, “It’s a very special partnership between QUT Creative Industries and La Boite Theatre Company… not only to stage a play that sadly has still very strong messages for contemporary audiences and actors, but this partnership has allowed eight bachelor of fine arts acting final year students to make their professional debut.”

The tale deals with the drunken gang rape and murder of a high school girl at a party and the aftermath in the seaside community. The original 45-minute version focussed only on the aftermath and was written with school-aged audiences in mind before Enright retooled it for adults, doubling it in length and adding extra characters.

If the subject matter isn’t challenging enough, the show was performed in the round, presenting further challenges. The hardest was creating the connection between audience and actors, as often in the most heart-wrenching moments one couldn’t see the actors’ faces and thus missed the emotional nuances of performance. This mild ‘emotional distancing’, whether intentional or not, was actually helpful in underlining the political message of the work.

The set was fabulously constructed and designed by the extremely talented Anthony Spinaze. It had several layers for the actors and director to play with and gave audiences used to looking down into the Roundhouse space a chance to look up to the top level of the high set. At times the set blocked the actors from view, adding to that ‘distancing’ effect.

Lighting Design by Verity Hampson was perfection – that golden yellow and orange glow of seaside towns in summer, the cool moonlight of night time – her work was remarkable. Fight Direction by Nigel Poulten was outstanding. He’d trained the actors to show trust and restraint while maintaining a great level of realism.

Overall the director (and current La Boite Artistic Director) Todd Macdonald achieved positive results from his cast and crew and made some clever choices. It was a great idea to use a popular tune Covered in Chrome by local musicians Violent Soho as ‘Tracey’s song’. There was also an ingenious use of technology and projection to enhance the storytelling throughout the show. There’s a part in A Property of the Clan where Jade admits seeing boys’ faces above her in her prophetic dreams and right after the murder the director has a moment with the boys’ faces projected on screen which felt like an homage to that concept (though I could be reading a little too much into it). It was easy to tell he’d gotten some of the young actors to really step up their game to the next level.

“It’s huge - us working with the third years at QUT has been a fantastic experience,” Mr Macdonald said after the opening night show, “They’ve got the voice that we need for this work and it’s really a ‘no-brainer’ for us to actually work with these young people and to bring their spirit and their energy and their intelligence into this play.”

All of the actors did well to capture the accent and vocal tones of their recognisably Australian characters. Annabel Harte (Shana/Policewoman) had excellent commitment to character and showed brave risk taking. Amy Ingram (Glenys/ Marian) showed flexible versatility in her two roles. Karl Stuifzand (Ricko) nailed the physicality, emotion and linguistic style of his character in a very challenging role. The weaker links were Tom Wilson (Scott) and Bianca Saul (Tiffany), both of whom just needed to shake a little of that self-consciousness one often sees in younger actors. It’s likely that will occur during their three-week season. Overall, the ensemble made a great effort to give their all in the performance.

Blackrock is a heartbreaking Australian tragedy with themes that need to be discussed and problems that need to be solved by our society. Even though it was first written over 20 years ago, Nick Enright’s tale of peer pressure, toxic masculinity and victim blame sadly still resonates profoundly with a modern audience. Here’s hoping in another 20 years’ time this play will feel less relatable and more like a look into our tragic past.

Kiesten McCauley

Photographer: Dylan Evans