John

John
By Annie Baker. Outhouse Theatre Co & Seymour Centre. Director: Craig Baldwin. Reginald Theatre, The Seymour Centre, Sydney. 19 September – 12 October 2019

John takes me back to a time when plays in three acts (and two intervals) lasted four hours, and to settings of interiors that seem so complete you could move in for the night. Recently at the Reginald Theatre I’ve seen a single table stand as the setting for six generations of a family: not here. John is played on a set as complete, as polished and as real as anything I’ve seen in Sydney theatre for many years.

Brilliant red velvet curtains are pulled open (by Belinda Giblin as Mertis, owner of the American B&B on the Gettysburg battlefield) to reveal an amazing interior. The audience are momentarily stunned by a solid staircase, 10 chairs in three separate acting areas, a piano, a grandfather clock, a fully dressed Xmas tree, with dolls and figurines everywhere – ‘there is so much miniature shit!’ as one character puts it. It’s solid and beautifully finished (by Set Designer Jeremy Allen), quite unlike the usual modern theatrical display where the budget is king. 

Mertis greets her two young, ill-fitting guests from Brooklyn: the easily-offended Jewish atheist Elias (James Bell), who slurps his breakfast ceral, and the more refined Asian-American Jenny (Shuang Hu), who so struggles with period pain that she takes 5 Ibuprofen tablets in one go. Her mobile phone pings throughout.

The cast is completed by Mertis’ best friend Genevieve (Maggie Blinco), an elderly, other-worldly character who is blind but who ‘sees’ what’s going on. She breaks all the rules at the end of the second act by lecturing the audience as we move towards the bar. 

Other events occur, but why the piano suddenly plays two long pieces, why the Xmas lights come and go, and why Mertis keeps pulling time forward on her grandfather clock, you’ll have to forgive me. The play may be long but the plot never loses its control. 

‘What does it all mean?’ I hear you cry. I’ve no idea, but this well-acted, sharply directed and original, puzzling play has given me much to think about. For instance: who the hell is ‘John’ and what on earth has he got to do with anything?

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Clare Hawley

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