Fair Punishment

Creative genius and the artists who possess it and spend their lives striving to create lived and performed experiences of it for us to share, often nests in the elusive realm of the impossible. The Theatre takes her prisoners – theatre makers and audiences alike – where our shared memories are often littered with flaws, mishaps, errors of judgement, indulgence, and unhappily unmet expectations.

The act of making Theatre of Grand Ambition – the perfect amalgam of every single creative aspect, pulse, heartbeat (ours and theirs), moment and dream of turning the impossible into reality on the head of pin – has the potential to change lives. As audience, we are opened like a book – our unhealthy cynicism and resistance slowly worn down, our imaginations and curiosity piqued, before gradually, we find ourselves in thrall. Astonished. Disarmed. Captivated. Transported. As one with the uncommon experience of being utterly and completely entranced.

And if there is a better example of perfection in the Theatre of Grand Ambition on any Australian stage than the luxurious carnival of creative genius that is Fair Punishment, then I would love to know what it is.

Ms Dee is rightfully celebrated as one of Australia’s finest creative diplomats – and here, she brings her vision of an epic, challenging, daring and powerful creative democracy to life – rewarded by collaborators who are at the very peak of their inestimable powers.

Mr Barber’s design is magnificent – the kind of epic design for the theatre that seemingly innately supports every single nuance and demand of the text (and there are many), before – like another character – playfully and ruthlessly toying with our comprehension of where we are and why. Working primarily with a deceptively inviting warm, ashen palette, Barber lovingly and cleverly (I won’t be able to look at my paint roller in quite the same way ever again!) wraps the performers (and us) up in a stunning, perfectly functional and beautifully detailed environment. Every inch of the space is utilised – to the point where those of us familiar with the Brown’s Mart stage might wonder if we have come to a theatre three times the size. Barber’s respect for, and appreciation of, the critical value of spatial dynamics in design for the stage is unsurpassed. The ingenuity of his flawless vision for how the environment, and the brilliant costumes, necessary for this performance to scale the perilous heights it has clearly set for itself are, at turns, nothing less than miraculous.

There are times in the theatre when I have found myself saying quietly to myself “No!” – and in Mr Cunliffe’s soundscape that powers this work like blood coursing through its veins, the flawless artistry and marriage to every impulse of the epic text is beyond complete. Operatic in its scale, Cunliffe’s attention to every minute detail (the scratching of a pen on the pages of a journal was the first of many of my “No!” moments) is equally matched by the vulnerability, angst, ferocity and purpose he brings to our senses. Sound design in the theatre is often either overlooked entirely or a lazy, perfunctory Spotify-esque playlist to set the mood. Not here. Cunliffe’s masterful, other-worldly work brings layers and layers of compelling aural theatricality to tantalise, inspire, and complete our sensory experience of the performance.

Mr Lydiard’s lighting design can only be described as perfection – and even that does it something of a disservice. I have had the immense privilege of seeing Lydiard’s work before, and here he creates and then weaves a spectacular, nuanced and almost impossibly fluid environment that enriches the work beyond measure. Known for his impeccable attention to detail, here he uses light as an agitated and impatient artist might use paint on a canvas. His states are restless and intricately layered, and the way his illumination follows, predicts, punctuates, glows, isolates and highlights every beat of the performance is exceptional. The use of the flickering internal lights of the country estate (where much of the action takes place) is inspired, and married to Cunliffe’s soundscape in otherwise impossible ways is just one of the many moments the performance transcends even the extraordinary.

For performers, trust and self-consciousness are the fiercest and most unpredictable enemies. It is one of the Director’s primary responsibilities to ensure that their performers are delivered to the stage (and us), in complete trust – not only in themselves and every beat of the text, but each other. From the moment Dee’s ensemble takes over the stage, it is clear that they are entirely and absolutely in that precious state of trust – and this particular work would drop to the ground like a dead-weight instantly if they weren’t. Thankfully, Dee understands risk – almost to the point that you might not manage to get her attention unless the risks involved are so overwhelming that lesser talents, with less encyclopaedic creative intelligence, would duck for cover.

The full-face masks, I had imagined, would at least be interesting. Here, married to the ensemble’s flawless physical literacy and vocabulary, they are magic – so much so that it would be impossible to imagine this work existing without them. The slapstick attempts to arrange a shrouded dead body on a table establishes what turns out to be a deceptively light tone as Ms Fearn and Ms Evans’s brilliant adaptation of the source soon departs on an intoxicating course through truly gothic terrain. The paper-cut precise text is faultless. With the poetry intact, every word matters – and the journeys taken through a magic, fairytale-esque combination of spoken word and the masked, wordless physical vocabulary are breathtaking.

In this World Premiere performance (of a work that I predict will tour Australia and then the world), a star was born. Ms Tong’s performance, while completely as one in the company of the ensemble – and especially the exceptional Fearn as her masked, wordless ‘self’ – was never less than utterly compelling. In complete command of the text and the epic physical and psychological demands it makes of her for the entire performance, Tong was on fire. Not a flinch, a doubt, a disconnect, or a moment where she was not only in her body, but in her responsibility to honour the adventurousness of the story, its artfully obscured messages, and the bone-bare gothic horror of the work as she powered it flawlessly and dangerously to its denouement. I would love to be able to share with you the final moments of her performance that still haunt me, as Cunliffe’s gruesome pinpricks of finality and Lydiard’s gothic illuminations slowly faded in equally gruesome specifics – like razor sharp punctuation playing tricks with my mind – to black at the end.

But you’ll just have to see it for yourself. And you really must, Darwin. You really must.

Geoffrey Williams

Image: Merlynn Tong (left) and Nicky Fearn in Fair Punishment at Brown’s Mart. Photo by Charlie Bliss.