Friday, 12 November 2010
“A Solitary Choice”
Seymour Centre, City Rd, Chippendale, Australia, 8pm
“You always have a choice.”
“Choice is what got me here in the first place.”
It is dialogue like this that validates my own choice in seeing Sheila Duncan’s “A Solitary Choice”. And it’s Tamara Lee’s one-woman performance on a bare Seymour Centre stage that validates my choice in not buying that packet of Malteasers. Wrestling with a rustling bag in an audience of 6 patrons is not theatre etiquette, nor is the inevitability of a lone Malteaser hitting Lee’s most versatile stage prop. For all of 6 patrons to see.
So what’s the story?
Lee erratically and dramatically tells us the story of Ruth, defined by where she lives [suburbia], what she does [banking officer], and ultimately who she is [wife + mother]. But beneath that whitewash of definitives is Ruth’s inner turmoil and monologue about carrying another man’s baby. Lee’s portrayal of Ruth’s raw emotion as she struggles with her choice – the meaning, not value, she places on her life and the lives of others – fills the minimal set. The bare stage is overwhelmed by Lee’s presence, just as your heart is overwhelmed by Ruth’s plight and your mind by her provocative stream of consciousness.
Characterising the symbolism
You don’t notice for the hour that Ruth is the only character on stage, or that there is more than one prop other than the suitcase. The two demand attention, and, boy, do they get it. The suitcase doubles as a prop for a cardboard box and gravestone, but also as a symbol of Ruth’s choice: is it opportunity or running away? Being boxed in or being free?
Special mention to Andrew Kay’s lighting, which serves as a character in itself. An effective supporting actor in times of Ruth’s oft banshee shrieks [not many patrons to soak up the noise perhaps?], and taking centre stage to depict the dignity of silence.
Reason for the script
I found Lee didn’t execute the more dry lines of the script too well. I couldn’t reconcile the droll discourses with Lee’s high-pitched voice and spasmodic mannerisms. I also think the sardonic sections of the script didn’t get the (correct? deserving?) reception it should. Perhaps it was Lee’s overcompensated delivery, was she trying to speak over the voices heard in the next theatre? Perhaps it was Lee’s connection with the small audience. Or perhaps it was the small audience’s awareness of how loud their laughs would resonate in the subtemps of the cold theatre.
But everything about this performance was resonating. Just as Ruth personifies the baby with characteristics that brought her there in the first place [unfettered passion], her yearnings for the future [wild will], the meaning she places on herself and the baby [weed in the wrong soil], and finally taking on the characteristics of it [“F*CK YOU!”], you too are personifying your own life, placing meaning on the lines Ruth speaks, characterising her thoughts.
I especially enjoyed Duncan’s script. Her lines gave life to all aspects of the play, and humour to situations such as when Ruth is wolfing down some Tim Tam packets washed down with few cans of condensed milk [to which not only my pregnant friends can relate but myself as a general pig]: “There’s something about chewing that puts your mind into a trance.”
And there’s something about “A Solitary Choice” that puts your mind into a trance, trying to process the enormity of the issue with which Ruth is faced and its consequences. Its an internal analysis that will have you thinking and uniting with others beyond the stage.
I don't think my suitcase represents anything other than a broken piece of crap I try to make everyone else carry.
[Photo courtesy of Adrian Zilinsky.]
