Red Stitch, the Actors’ Theatre, is having an amazing year. From its exquisite productions of A Case for the Existence of God and Blackout Songs, to its success transferring their 2023 production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf from their 80-seat theatre to the 1000-seat Comedy Theatre. The latest good news for that production is it has been programmed as part of Sydney Theatre Company’s 2025 season.
I’d like to
see more of this kind of evolution in Australia’s theatre ecology. If Virginia
Woolf had come and gone last year, I – for one – would have missed it. And
now thousands of people in Melbourne and Sydney will get a chance. Let’s make
sure not everything on our stages is one season and done.
Red Stitch is
also remounting two shows as part of their 2024 season. Monument, from
last year, and Iphigenia in Splott, which they first staged in 2021 –
its season cut short by yet another Melbourne lockdown. This year, they have
paired Iphigenia with another of playwright Gary Owen’s plays, Romeo
& Julie. It’s a great one-two punch because it’s nice to be able to
compare two shows from the same writer so close together.
The
original season at Red Stitch won multiple Green Room awards – for production,
direction and performance. The reviews were outstanding. Return seasons of shows
– even multi-award-winning shows with rave reviews – are rare. I’m so glad
it’s back. This show is brilliant.
Iphigenia
in Splott was first
produced at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff in 2015. The Guardian critic called
it “perfect theatre”. It was listed as one of the 50 best theatre shows of the
21st century in the same newspaper in 2019. Alongside such luminaries
as Hamilton, Annie Baker’s The Flick, Caryl Churchill’s Escaped
Alone, The Inheritance, Barbershop Chronicles, Topdog/Underdog.
The list, of course, goes on.
The text
itself is rich and robust. It’s hard-edged and lyrical. And for ninety-minutes,
Ephie tells the story of her life and why she’s much more important than we
realise.
“You
lot. Sitting back, taking it easy, waiting for me. To – what? Impress you?
Amaze you? Show you what I’ve got?”
In direct
address, it’s an astonishing provocation. To us, a theatre audience, from this
woman from the lower-class suburb of Splott in Wales. Tight pants, tight shirt,
and a coat to keep the cold off. She describes herself and she tells us what we
see. What we think when we see her in the street, pissed first thing in the
morning.
“Stupid
slag. Nasty skank.”
It’s a bold
opening. Bracing. But she has a story to tell us. Why we should give thanks to
a woman like her.
“You’re
in my debt. And tonight… I’ve come to collect.”
And the
rollercoaster begins.
Writer Owen
knows what a theatre audience is like. I think it’s true of Britain and the
colonies, even as companies are slowly changing the face of their actors and
writers and designers and their artistic directors. Theatre is so often written
for white, middle-class audiences. Even in the UK, with a theatre network that
feels more embedded in communities across the land, with working-class writers
at the forefront of some of the great theatre shifts in the last half-century,
the audiences remain the same.
This is the
perfect show for somewhere like Red Stitch, because it’s a monodrama for one
woman to perform and it benefits from the intensity and intimacy of their
space. And as inventive as I’ve seen theatre makers be in that small black box –
making it seem larger than it could possibly be – there’s something great about
Ephie being trapped in a box within a box.
Set
designers Jacob Battista and Sophie Woodward have given us a waiting room.
Hideous hard-wearing carpet, in a mismatched checkerboard pattern. Segmented
walls that are variously fogged glass and block-colour wall panels. And a
floating ceiling with LEDs that, for most of the show, are harsh white fluorescent
lights.
Lighting
designer Rachel Burke has many tricks up her sleeve as Ephie’s story layers
trauma upon trauma, but for a long time, Ephie and her captive audience live
with a kind of static image. Stasis. The only life, Ephie herself.
Effie’s
life is hard. She describes it as going from drinking session to drinking
session. There’s a guy she’s seeing, but also there’s another guy – a disabled
soldier – she meets at a pub. So, she leaves her regular to hook up with a new
one. He treats her well. His squaddie friends seem like nice blokes. And for
one night, in a life of loneliness, she discovers the feeling of not being
alone. She likes being with someone. She likes connection. This is the moment
her harsh, brash façade gives a little and we can see her more fully than the
kind of woman we might avert our gaze from walking down the street.
Actor
Jessica Clarke’s performance feels like a force-of-nature. Even if we bristle at
the character early on, Clarke is so committed to the performance, the audience
is captivated from the moment she calls us out and dims the house lights. I was
hooked. She makes us laugh at the most stomach-churning details of Ephie’s life
and floors us with the rising tension, ratcheting up the drama. Yes, the
character wants to remain strong, but there’s only so much she can do in the
face of everything. Clarke has crafted an unforgettable performance here. Can
we give her more awards please?
The play is
inspired by the Greek myth of Iphigenia, a woman sacrificed by her father to
appease the Gods. Here, in Splott, the Gods are the patriarchy and capitalism
and indifferent governments and departmental red tape and a hospital system in
crisis. After seeing Owen’s Romeo & Julie, which contained a lot of
the same concerns for the poor and the marginalised – people in crisis, it was
fascinating to see how he distilled these ideas into a single character. Where
I found his other play missed the mark a lot of the time, every moment here is
a bullseye.
I will
admit, early on, I was worried that the story might have fallen into the trap
of telling us a facile story with a pat lessson: that poor people are real people, too. But the play has more
going for it than that. This is not as simple as recognising the humanity of
people outside of our experience, outside of our bubbles. This is about how
austerity measures rock the world of the poor first. This is about how cuts to
hospitals are felt by them before they are felt by us. This is about us
listening to the poor and the working class and understand they are the canaries
in the coal mine – the first signs of an economy, a society under assault. And
what are we going to do if they can’t take it anymore?
Director
Gary Abrahams is having an amazing year. After revisiting Yentl at Malthouse in
March (another multi-award-winning show I missed in its original run), Melbourne
audiences are fortunate enough to see this perfect jewel of a show again, too.
Abrahams’ clear concept smartly brings together all the elements, performance
and design, and delivers a powerhouse production.
Some of the
choices later in the show, where actor and set interact to gut-punching effect,
made me want to seek out how other productions have handled these final moments.
Here, it’s extraordinary. A coup de théâtre. It’s not the first time I’ve been
moved to tears at Red Stitch this year, but the catharsis felt this time was truly
powerful.
Do not miss
Iphigenia in Splott. We’re fortunate this show has returned. Every time
I walk into a show, I want the show to be great. It’s such a blessing when it’s
this extraordinary.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Iphigenia in Splott is at Red Stitch until September 22. It might be too much to hope Ephie passes this way again any time soon.
Photos: Jodie Hutchinson
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