Draw Two

A twenty-something woman, Riley (Georgia McGinness) goes back to the country town she came from – just as her life is coming together...  Her twin sister Mia has died, leaving behind a four-year-old son – and an empty house.  In a supermarket queue, Riley is startled when an old schoolmate, Kieran, mistakes her for Mia... And Riley doesn’t correct him.  Which makes us wonder about Mia...

So, this charming, touching, tragic and funny story begins.  It avoids the confessional or memory mode of many monologues by playing all its dilemmas in the present tense so giving it an immediacy and great dramatic tension. The writing has a remarkable maturity, moving smoothly between past and present, and in being subjective (Riley’s version) and objective (the writer’s version) at the same time. 

Draw Two is rich in beautifully observed, pointed detail, completely natural idiomatic dialogue, and in Georgia McGinness’ bravura solo performance.  She is immediately warm and engaging, but she goes on to achieve an arresting balance between her own likeable, sympathetic persona and that of Riley, our storyteller.  When Riley and Mia were growing up, Riley was an outsider, not popular as Mia was, and now is an indecisive, deceitful, selfish young woman, ambivalent in her grief, torn between the expectations of others and her own blossoming career as an artist – and more than a little resentful because of that.  

But as well as Riley, McGinness gives us, more by subtle suggestion, voice and movement than impersonation, up to ten other characters, including Kieran, that old schoolmate who’s now a spunk but also a Dad, his little son, Sam, the now dead Mia, their emotionally blackmailing Mother, as well as Riley’s girlfriend back in the city, a local motor mechanic (after Riley smashes up her car), and, of course, the bright as a button little boy that Mia left behind...  He is so vividly created we imagine we can almost see him.

Lauren Bennett’s direction is crucial here – in its detail, precision and intuitive grasp of all the characters McGinniss and the playwright create.  The storytelling moves briskly but with just the right emphases among quotidian detail (Neapolitan ice-cream, sanitary pads), sadness (it’s too late now), guilt, embarrassment, the very near erotic (hot, sexy but also funny), the charm of small children, and destiny.

Clare Hennessy’s music and sound design give us smooth transitions of mood and time, while Ishan Vivekanantham’s design is cleverly suggestive of closure and transition.  His set is draped floor to ceiling in brown paper, and the only specific location is the interior of Mia’s now packed up and empty house – no more than a low rostrum piled and surrounded by brown paper and tape wrapped boxes.  Meanwhile, at key points, Lauren Goodfellow’s colourful, almost faux naïve images – eucalypts, birds, bush flowers, and the property’s dam (where Mia first mentioned that pain in her back) projected on the brown paper and a draped white curtain, heighten memories and emotions.

Draw Two is a play about uncertainty, obligation and decisions that have to be made.  Much emphasis is placed on how Mia and their mother were always at Riley to make decisions – to do something and stop wasting her life.  Now, it’s crunch time for this twenty-something – now when she’s scored an art residency in Canada, now when she’s in a relationship with a woman who is all excited at making an instant family with Riley’s little nephew...    

A superb actor, McGinniss holds our unwavering attention, care and affection throughout – not just at the story but at how well she tells it.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Hannah Jennings