The Lab at Light ADL @ West Village, Thu 2 Mar, 2023.
The Lab’s L-shaped stage and 180-degree panoramic projection backdrop encourages innovation. The fourth wall disappears as characters are in full view as they arrive and exit the stage. The extended projection space allows for all manner of use – text messages on screen, characters who are not physically present can interact with on stage players, radical changes of set from one scene to another, locating scenes in specific geographical locations, the use of silhouette, and canny use of liminal messaging between scenes via abstract imagery and sound.
All of these elements are employed with excellent effect in Recalibrate. And then of course you have the rightly billed powerhouse cast.
Simone (Emma Beach) has returned home from Las Vegas to help out with a mystery family emergency. Her entrance is awkward and funny – it’s immediately obvious she’s the black sheep of the family. She’s also someone who can see through crap and knows when people are fooling themselves. Her sister, Mary (Katie O’Reilly) is a case in point; lost in the world of motherhood. Their mother Carmel (Jacqy Phillips) is an academic coming to the end of her tenure. She is desperate for Tessa (Kelly Vincent), her star student, to stay on and complete her degree, but Tessa is tired of theoretical ‘academic bullshit’ and wants out. Relationships between all the characters seem fractured and tense until Carmel stages a protest on the roof of the university armed with a megaphone. Her impassioned rant from the rooftops is both an irrational outpouring and a brilliant account of what she sees as wrong in the world. As a fellow Boomer I found it deeply moving and had to fight back tears. A line was crossed here – somewhere it stopped being theatre and became terribly real. It was a powerful moment.
This desperate display of emotion briefly brings a degree of equilibrium until a final twist challenges the sisters one more time.
Jacqy Phillips, Kelly Vincent, Emma Beech and Katie O’Reilly were all wonderful in their respective roles, but Phillips’ performance is one for the ages.
It might be described as dark comedy. Variously bleak, humorous, and hopeful. But nothing in life is straightforward and everything comes at a cost. A really impressive new work from the SA Playwrights Theatre.
Written by Lucy Combe. Directed by Elena Vereker.
(This review also published in The Clothesline.)
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