By Lachlan Williams:

It was oddly appropriate that there was a ferocious storm outside on the opening night of Redemption. Jonathan Ari Lander’s gothic melodrama takes place amid a storm of blood, and the rain on the tin roof of the Old Fitzroy Theatre provided a constant atmospheric hum throughout.

Redemption is set after the apocalypse, in a world in which the only things to emerge unscathed are religious fervour and pristine white lace, which both Lucy Millar and Madeleine Jones wear throughout. Sahsa and Karl are caring for their feverish “daughter” Piqui, who has dreams of a menacing, enigmatic stranger named Quill.

Their dream-correspondence draws the real-life Quill – an amiable, worldly doctor who claims to be an emissary from a colony of survivors – to the house, just as a rain of corrosive blood begins to fall, killing livestock and trapping the four together.

As Quill tends to Piqui under Karl’s suspicious watch, a dialectic between worldly, scientific, cynical knowledge and an ignorant, suspicious self-reliance emerges. Meanwhile, the blood rain falls, corroding the roof and walls. Karl is gruffly intent on feeding, teaching and bettering Quill, who is just as intent on raping Karl’s wife, daughter or both.

The opening night began shakily and picked up throughout the first act. This is probably forgivable, given that the storm outside had started leaking into the theatre before the show, disabling a portion of the lighting rig. It was literally a matter of minutes before the doors opened that the actors knew for certain they’d be taking the stage.

Under these circumstances they did an exceptional job, and what began as a slightly bombastic forced melodrama quickly gained an eeriness and pregnancy as the performers rebuilt the world they’d been inhabiting through the rehearsal period. There are many things in this play that are genuinely (and somewhat self-consciously) creepy. Made-up prayers are creepy, because we recognise them and we don’t recognise them. A rain of blood made from occasionally illuminated shredded slash (that glittery cellophane substance) is creepy, and incredibly well-executed.

In fact, the staging more generally is one of the real strengths of Redemption. Director Fiona Pullford and her design team have used the Fitz space very well, and what initially appears to be a schizophrenic set design reveals a versatility and functionality that’s difficult to achieve in such a small theatre.

There is no shortage of action in Redemption – it’s easily the rapiest show I’ve seen in years, Jacobean and Elizabethan theatre notwithstanding. Beneath its charismatic, occasionally hilarious, often disturbing façade, there’s a bleakness and lack of the eponymous redemption that really only hits you once you’re no longer absorbed in the world of the play. The plot itself trucks along, and there’s not awards for guessing where you’re going – this is, after all, a melodrama.

Faysall Bazzi alternates well between the affable and the demonic, and we’re never quite sure which Quill he’ll present us with next. Lucy Miller’s Sahsa is probably the sanest and most sympathetic of the characters in the play, and Miller’s presence anchors what might otherwise become an anarchic gore-fest. Madeleine Jones plays the sickly, dreamlike Piqui with a suitable pale, Cassandra-like insanity, and Kyle Rowling’s turn as the man of the household suits is imbued with a bound, churlish masculinity.

The unfolding of the plot is not surprising, but it is largely well-handled. What puzzles me is where the play comes from. It’s definitely an unusual sort of play to write at the moment, and it’s possibly more thematically suited to the cinema than the statge, but as a self-contained, gory, charismatic piece of entertainment, it works well.

Previews: 14 – 16 May 2010

Dates: 14 May – 12 June 2010

Opening Night: 18 May 2010

Performances: Tues-Sat, 8pm and Sunday 5pm

Tickets: $29 Full, $22 Concession, $36 Beer, Laksa and Show (plus BF)

$18 Preview and Cheap Tuesday, $26 Beer, Laksa and Show (plus BF)
Bookings: www.rocksurfers.org OR 1300 438 849 OR box office 75 mins prior to performance

Starring

Fayssal Bazzi (Cedar Boys)

Madeleine Jones (Cabaret)

Lucy Miller (Unit 46, Snatch Paradise)

Kyle Rowling (Spartacus: Blood and Sand)

Director

Fiona Pulford (affiliate director with STC 1999/2000)

Lachlan Williams is a Sydney-based writer, comedian and musician and has worked with Australian independent live theatre for a number of years.

Tags: Lachlan Williams, old fitzroy theatre, redemption, rocksurfers