by Richard
Bladel
At La Mama until
December 1, 1996
Reviewed by KH around
Nov 13, 1996
Incest, patricide,
fratricide – not a very cheery piece is Richard Bladel's Snorkel. However it
is briskly directed by Ariette Taylor and stylishly performed by Belinda
McClory and David Pidd.
The small space at La Mama becomes dangerous and the
emotional and physical violations perpetrated by the two characters re
intimidatingly close to us. McClory and Pidd's portrayal of adult siblings,
Snorkel and Sis, shifts in a complex emotional dance from child-like to adult,
lovers to loathers.
During what begins as an eerie wake for their murdered
father, they taunt, tease, attack, withhold and terrify each other with threats
of abandonment, revelation and escape. They fear aloneness but Sis fears
Snorkel, drunk on metho and milk, will turn into her abusive father. Their
chequered past is slowly revealed.
McClory gives a magnetic, fluid and often beautifully
realised performance of the fraught and terrified Sis. Pidd's Snorkel is
perilously close to the edge of insanity as he literally climbs the walls and
leaps across tables. They work hard and fast, providing the text with layers of
subtext with a glance, a pause, a tear.
The mutton bird, on which they are about to dine, is a
pivotal metaphor. "These plain little grey birds returns to the same
burrow every year." Sis is a mutton bird. She has never been able to
escape father or brother. Perhaps tonight.
Director and actors have given a flawed script a new and successful
fourth dimension. Adrienne Chisholm's set design of totally bleached grey
removes any touch of naturalism in combination with the abstract, heightened
performance style.
The script wanders a little, is unclear in style, repeats
itself and reveals too much too early, reducing its dramatic tension. There is a flat patch in the middle but the
actors kick it up into top gear for a swift and furious finale.
KATE HERBERT
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