Hir

Black Swan’s 2018 Season is made up of a series of “conversations” between two productions. In the first concurrent pairing, ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’, Taylor Mac’s relatively new play Hir sits beside Australian classic Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, which is playing upstairs in the same building. Both plays feature men who return ‘home’ to find things irrevocably changed and both deal with themes of masculine identity.

Hir is a gender neutral pronoun used instead of ‘his’ or ‘her’. In Hir, Isaac returns home from military service in Afghanistan to find his family home in squalor. His previously domineering father struggles to communicate and is wearing a dress, his mother has a renewed vigour - but is refusing to clean or deal with household tasks in retaliation for years of oppression and Isaac’s little sister Max is now his brother and insists on being called ze and hir. 

Tyler Hill’s complex set gives us a home that sits somewhere between post-apocalyptic and an episode of Hoarders and is very functionally dysfunctional. Tarryn Gill’s costumes have great attention to detail. Lighting, designed by Lucy Birkinshaw, and Sound and Composition by Brett Smith, are both characterised by bold choices.
Will O’Mahon gives great depth to prodigal son Isaac, travelling a huge emotional journey.

Toni Scanlan is convincing as Paige Connor, a woman rewriting the rules of how she lives her life. She works expertly against Igor Sas who is excellent and problematically sympathetic as abuser turned invalid, Arnold in a magic, almost wordless performance.

Jack Palit is an enigmatic young performer with a wonderful presence, although this relative newcomer struggles with the accent. While Mr Palit is a nice choice as Max, I wonder why our State Theatre Company felt the need to cast from Melbourne, when we have high-calibre actors in this niche casting bracket in Perth.

Hir is an excellent play, with much to say, and makes for compelling viewing, especially when paired with its brother production. A fascinating and thought-provoking evening of theatre.

Kimberley Shaw

Photographer: Daniel James Grant.