The Gift
By Joanna Murray-Smith
Directed by Colin McColl
Set design by Rachael Walker
Costume design by Sara Taylor
Lighting design by Philip Dexter MSc
AV design by Simon Barker
Music composition and sound design by Adrian Hollay
Produced by Auckland Theatre Company
At the Maidment Theatre
13 September to 06 October, 2012
Reviewed on 19 September, 2012
Published at http://www.theatreview.org.nz
As the house lights went down on the almost full stalls the delightful – and garrulous – older gentleman seated behind me said, in the loudest of stage whispers, ‘tickety boo’.
He may have been English.
Whatever his nationality, he and the group of men and women in his party were demographically representative of the audience at large: European, middle class, middle aged, educated and tastefully attired.
This was a bit of a shock.
It’s been awhile since I attended an Auckland Theatre Company production – May for A Midsummer Night’s Dream – and I’d forgotten in the intervening months what experiencing ATC at the Maidment was like. I seriously regret missing Black Confetti and Awatea but life, work and twelve other reviews intervened and the pleasure I always get from going to the Maid for an ATC show had to be put on hold.
Why mention this?
Simply because I’d forgotten what the ATC audience base is. My reviewing missions had been at The Basement, the Pumphouse and The Herald theatres and they tend to attract a different crowd – younger, more alternative, edgier – and I was interested to see whether the response was different too.
It wasn’t.
The Gift is the work of Melbourne playwright Joanna Murray-Smith. Murray-Smith is a wordsmith by trade, a librettist, columnist, novelist, poet and writer of screenplays. Following graduation from the University of Melbourne she undertook a writing programme at Columbia University in The Big Apple where she wrote her first major work Honour (1995)before returning home to marry and have children.
Nightfall (2007), Scenes from a Marriage (2008), and the controversial Female of the Species (2008) followed with The Gift (2011)being the latest in a line of fine works.
Colin McColl’s production of The Gift has class written all over it.
From glittering cast to swanky set (Rachael Walker), from the cool Pacific jazz of Adrian Hollay to the fabulous audio-visuals of Simon Barker, from the subtlest of lighting by Phillip Dexter MSc to the divine costumes of Sara Taylor there’s barely a thing out of place. McColl’s direction is masterful to the degree that this psychologically labyrinthine script is made clear as day from beginning to end.
Not that there is an end – but let that go.
Walker’s set is visually exciting but it’s also a great place to play. Constructed like a sloped and angled Rubik cube with a mirrored replica at the back there are further blocks that create a low wall on each of two sides. The whole is in a teal colour and I have little doubt that many in the audience owned, as I did, an airline bag of a similar colour in the ‘60s.
Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL).
Just for reference.
There are chrome railings and a swimming pool-like entrance with handrails up from the back. There are pillars to each side for projections that assume an increasing importance during the 90 minute (no interval) journey. It’s beautiful and practical and Walker, again, confirms her place among our best designers.
Enter Sadie (Sarah Peirse).
Peirse has been around for awhile and done this and that in film, TV and on the stage. She directed a bunch of stuff too and she’s, all in all, a totally class act. No surprise then that she’s won more awards than most and it’s a real joy to see her back working with ATC. She’s perfect for Sadie and she spends the evening proving it. Her greatest gift, in my view, is her understanding of how ensemble works. She fits seamlessly into any situation and in this she’s witty, zany and feeds the play like it was her own pet pigeon.
She’s going to tell us a story, she says, and what a story it turns out to be.
Ed (Marshall Napier) arrives next.
He and Sadie have been married 25 years and this trip, this holiday to an unnamed island resort, is a wedding anniversary present to each other. Ed has made his millions in woodworking equipment – he’s franchised even in Samoa – and he’s been there, done that in a rather red-neck way. He’s a man’s man – or so it seems.
Like Peirse, Napier is perfectly cast. He has an awful lot to say and he says it awfully well. A no-holds-barred, shoot from the lip sort of bloke, Ed endears himself to us in a Married with Children sort of way and we love his right wing reactionary views. We all know people like Ed – voted for them, perhaps – and they’re as comfortable as our favourite sneakers. Napier has certainly paid his dues and it’s great to see ATC using its resources to contract artists of such talent and experience – and then casting them so well.
Enter Martin (Simon London) and Chloe (Laura Hill).
They’re young, in love, married eight years and on the island because they’ve won a holiday in a raffle. They are also immensely attractive – to Ed and Sadie and to us.
London is a fine young talent last seen in Silo’s The Pride where he shone. He shines again here as Martin the uncompromisingly talented conceptual artist and everything that’s anathema to Ed.
Chloe is pretty, sexy and bright. We learn she has a PhD in something arty, the perfect pairing for Martin and she’s definitely outspoken. There’s something extraordinary about Hill, some quality that makes her extremely watchable and we watch with pleasure as Ed and Sadie fall – as we do – for this delicious young thing. She’s talented too, incredibly so.
There is the meeting, much talk about art and artists and the meaning of all that – Napier excels – and the couple acknowledge a growing bond that they accept yet don’t fully understand. They keep us hanging. Is it sexual? Is it intellectual? What is it that bonds these people together so completely? It’s tantalising stuff and you can hear a pin drop.
We learn that the youngsters have a daughter, Eleanor, aged four. Sadie and Ed have no children.
There’s a crisis and Ed drowns only to be brought back to life by CPR and Martin’s strong hands. There is a debt to be paid and Ed and Sadie offer Martin and Chloe a gift, an unacceptable gift as it turns out, but they agree to meet again in a year at which time Martin and Chloe will have decided what their gift will be. By this time the couples have agreed on a truth-or-nothing relationship and the die is cast for the astonishing denouement of the play.
I’ve been intentionally vague because this is a thinking person’s play and you really need to experience the rest for yourself. It’s riveting stuff throughout and, as I’ve already said, there is no resolution.
But there is a surprise at the end – and I think you’ll like it.
I did.
The Gift is a challenging play for actors and director but you’d never guess it from this production because all the questions have been asked and all the problems solved – with the production that is but not the presentation, they certainly don’t do our thinking for us and we’re left to cogitate happily on what might have been and what might be. McColl’s splendid cast sidle coolly through the work addressing all the philosophical and intellectual issues with clarity and charm and we love them for it.
The curtain call, so well earned and so gleefully acknowledged by the audience, was different and I really liked it. No effusive bows, no artifice, no fixed smiles, just an honest acceptance of our warm applause and an exit that left us all feeling we’d just spent an evening with dear friends.
My chum in the seat behind me was also joyously happy. In his agreeably cultured voice he chirped loudly to his friends ‘Well done. Jolly well done the ATC!’
I could only smile and concur.
Footnote:
ATC produce great programmes. This one is especially good because all the photographs show cast and crew smiling and happy. I hope the days of turgid, serious programme photos and at least temporarily over. Jolly chipper, chaps. Well done.
dykiegirl 