Sue Smith’s newest play, Machu Picchu, is an interesting exploration of how the dynamics of a family unit are severely disarranged when one element – husband/father – is subject to paralysis after a motor accident. Darren Gillshenan is the victim (Paul). Lisa McCune plays his wife (Gabby). Their daughter Lucy is played by Annabel Matheson.
This nuclear family is supplemented by two old friends (Kim and Marty, husband and wife played by Elena Carapetis and Luke Joslin) and the psychotherapist, Lou (Renato Mussolino).
This is domestic drama played out on a single, antiseptic set all hospital white and green. The hallucination episode, as (a) Paul imagines his big toe talking to him and (b) Elvis appears to questions his wife’s fidelity is easily integrated into the play’s structure and staging.
The play moves forward and backward in time, closing the circle on the moment before the accident and its debilitating consequences. At times this structure felt like the dissolves between one film scene and the next.
The play riffs on the accidental and core components of deep love, across marriage, friendship and parenthood. It has a jab at pop psychology but settles into an amiable truce with the potential power of mindfulness, articulating the journey of the various characters as a grasping towards simplicity in living and deep breathing.
The play does provides some powerful vignettes of deep emotion, such as at the end of Part 1 when Paul asks his daughter, Lucy the doctor, to consider medical intervention to end his life. Likewise, the drunken exchange with wife (Gabby) and husband’s best friend (Marty) is beautifully nuanced as the primal need for physical contact and uncomplicated joyous sex collides with loyalty and the demands of friendship.
The play’s resolution seems mapped out, schematically, like the plan of Machu Picchu that begins to appear on the stage as a sand drawing half way through Part 2. Its metaphor for sustainable foundations seems overstretched, though the filigree of its presentation is pleasant and practical.
What the play lacks is a coruscating tone, where self-knowledge and self-laceration reach an unbearable intensity. It is well meaning, well plotted and well acted, and in the end scores a tick of approval as a well-made reflection on middle class lives.
As Gabby, Lisa McCune delivers a varied range of emotions and keeps the dark humorous pulse of gentle invective alive across the arc of the plays trajectory. She is driven by her core love for her husband and partner, but aware of the chaotic and unfulfilled impulses of her being. This contrasts nicely with Gillshenan’s portrayal of her husband’s hypochondria and desire for foursquare goodness. The messiness and adequacy of their long-term relationship is well tracked in the play and the production.
The comic sidekicks have less material to play with and feel a bit like Mozart’s Papageno and Papagena. But once they settled down from the shallowness of their first hospital visit we learn a little more about the dynamics that drive their barren relationship, though not about the love that might sustain it.
The psychotherapist was both drolly and gently drawn by Musolino. Unfortunately the daughter’s hyper-ventilation regarding her parents seemed a little manufactured and ordained by plot necessities: (a) the euthanasia discourse and (b) the dread of watching a happy marriage. Matheson was unable to overcome these handicaps.
The catharsis is low wattage, but at times moving in its own calm way. The play receives a thoughtful production by the Sydney TC, in collaboration with the South Australia TC, as directed by Geordie Brookman.
The audience responded warmly to its conclusion, when the married couple return to the water pool of their early courtship and luxuriate in the warmth of the southern sun with a broken body and restored hope captured in the final tableau.
Sydney Theatre Company (STC) – Wharf Theatre – March 29, 2016
Sue Smith’s newest play, Machu Picchu, is an interesting exploration of how the dynamics of a family unit are severely disarranged when one element – husband/father – is subject to paralysis after a motor accident. Darren Gillshenan is the victim (Paul). Lisa McCune plays his wife (Gabby). Their daughter Lucy is played by Annabel Matheson.
This nuclear family is supplemented by two old friends (Kim and Marty, husband and wife played by Elena Carapetis and Luke Joslin) and the psychotherapist, Lou (Renato Mussolino).
This is domestic drama played out on a single, antiseptic set all hospital white and green. The hallucination episode, as (a) Paul imagines his big toe talking to him and (b) Elvis appears to questions his wife’s fidelity is easily integrated into the play’s structure and staging.
The play moves forward and backward in time, closing the circle on the moment before the accident and its debilitating consequences. At times this structure felt like the dissolves between one film scene and the next.
The play riffs on the accidental and core components of deep love, across marriage, friendship and parenthood. It has a jab at pop psychology but settles into an amiable truce with the potential power of mindfulness, articulating the journey of the various characters as a grasping towards simplicity in living and deep breathing.
The play does provides some powerful vignettes of deep emotion, such as at the end of Part 1 when Paul asks his daughter, Lucy the doctor, to consider medical intervention to end his life. Likewise, the drunken exchange with wife (Gabby) and husband’s best friend (Marty) is beautifully nuanced as the primal need for physical contact and uncomplicated joyous sex collides with loyalty and the demands of friendship.
The play’s resolution seems mapped out, schematically, like the plan of Machu Picchu that begins to appear on the stage as a sand drawing half way through Part 2. Its metaphor for sustainable foundations seems overstretched, though the filigree of its presentation is pleasant and practical.
What the play lacks is a coruscating tone, where self-knowledge and self-laceration reach an unbearable intensity. It is well meaning, well plotted and well acted, and in the end scores a tick of approval as a well-made reflection on middle class lives.
As Gabby, Lisa McCune delivers a varied range of emotions and keeps the dark humorous pulse of gentle invective alive across the arc of the plays trajectory. She is driven by her core love for her husband and partner, but aware of the chaotic and unfulfilled impulses of her being. This contrasts nicely with Gillshenan’s portrayal of her husband’s hypochondria and desire for foursquare goodness. The messiness and adequacy of their long-term relationship is well tracked in the play and the production.
The comic sidekicks have less material to play with and feel a bit like Mozart’s Papageno and Papagena. But once they settled down from the shallowness of their first hospital visit we learn a little more about the dynamics that drive their barren relationship, though not about the love that might sustain it.
The psychotherapist was both drolly and gently drawn by Musolino. Unfortunately the daughter’s hyper-ventilation regarding her parents seemed a little manufactured and ordained by plot necessities: (a) the euthanasia discourse and (b) the dread of watching a happy marriage. Matheson was unable to overcome these handicaps.
The catharsis is low wattage, but at times moving in its own calm way. The play receives a thoughtful production by the Sydney TC, in collaboration with the South Australia TC, as directed by Geordie Brookman.
The audience responded warmly to its conclusion, when the married couple return to the water pool of their early courtship and luxuriate in the warmth of the southern sun with a broken body and restored hope captured in the final tableau.
Sydney Theatre Company (STC) – Wharf Theatre – March 29, 2016