Return to Earth

Return to Earth
By Lally Katz. ARTHUR and Griffin Independent. SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross. September 4 – 28, 2013

Neither an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, nor the playwright’s note in the program really prepares one for this play, so it’s probably better to go unprepared - and let the play unsettle and confuse you, just as the protagonist, Alice (or is it Erica?) is unsettled and confused.

Shari Sebbens plays Alice, who has returned home after a prolonged absence, during which time she seems to have made little contact with her family. Sebbens finds the child in Alice through a wide-eyed naivety that seems to keep repressing the adult Alice who, when she does break through, is equally naïve and confused.

This is not helped by her oppressive family, who welcome her almost too effusively, pressure her too often to stay. There is an intensity here that is unnatural – and it is heightened by Paige Rattray’s very meticulous direction of this work that probes the insecurity of how we come to decide who we are going to be.

Katz’s disjointed scenes and almost unnatural dialogue allow Rattray to mix stylized movement with naturalism; hesitant, stilted delivery with moments of moving emotion. Symbols of the past are offered, clung onto, discarded, sometimes reclaimed. Light and sound add to the insecurity of the action, as real problems and imagined problems spill and collide, and, eventually, find a resolution – of sorts.

Sebbens is supported by a strong cast. Wendy Strehlow, as her mother, creates an enigmatic character whose tight control and stilted action belie the love and welcome she proffers, until other motives emerge. Laurence Coy, as her father, Cleveland, is similarly stilted. Coy mixes erratic movement and quick delivery to depict discordant layers below the seemingly welcome reunion.

Alice’s meeting with her old friend Jeanie is similarly strange. Alice strives to connect through old memories, which Jeanie steadfastly rejects. “I’m not a kid anymore Alice,” she says later in the play, “and neither are you”.

Yur Covich plays Theo, a fisherman, who is pulled, unwillingly, into Alice’s dream-reality world. Covich makes the most of Rattray’s mixture of styles and action, and finds humour and pathos in Theo’s reticent character.

It is when Alice meets her brother Tom (Ben Barber), his daughter Catta (ten year old Scarlett Waters) and her doctor, Mark Langham, that the play moves into realism – and reality is harsh and unexpected.

This is a strange play. At times it is surreal, at others almost unreal. Like life, really – and therefore, it lingers.

Carol Wimmer

Image: Shari Sebbens - photo by Jack Toohey.

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