If you believe that such a place as purgatory exists, a place within which those who have recently died gather to expiate their sins, then Hoy Polloy's production of Ariel Dorfman's play is a vision of purgatory as bureaucratic star chamber. Absent here is fire and brimstone, stained glass and good old RC religious orthodoxy; instead replaced by sustained and systematic interventions that dissect the qualitative and quantitative effects of lives lived in the throes of selfishness, self interest and cynicism. (Especially toward those who should be more deserving of the finer points of human nature, like our own families). In fact, the next time you or your spouse decides to murder the entire family, please consider that the complexities and consequences of such an act will be given a thorough going-over in that transitional space between earth and heaven. Most interesting about Dorfman's script is an assertion that this all important interrogation in preparation for meeting our maker is itself, a bit of a furphy. Dorfman's Man and Woman, fixated upon religious conviction and therefore led to believe that the good consequence of confession will be paradisiacal, are instead tripped at the last hurdle when they discover that a quest for the devine will only ever result in eternal damnation. Damnation itself being a religious concoction, Dorfman's script cannot escape the conclusion that religious frameworks for interpreting existence are self sustaining labyrinths that always end at their beginnings. Confess your sins and paradise awaits you; although, paradise may not be all palm trees and pinacoladas. Like Joseph K, the central protagonist of Franz Kafka's novel The Trial, and his interpretation of that book's parable Before the Law, by all means aspire toward the all encompassing light, but never forget that the Law receives you when you come, and releases you when you go. In the words of some long forgotten B-grade actor, "If this is paradise, then give me hell".
Amidst a set resembling a stylised psychiatric ward, the Woman, wearing nondescript prison clobber, wakes from a horrendous dream only to discover that she is once again about to be interrogated by The Man. He wears exactly the same clothes, although his authority relating to matters Confessional is exemplified by a white dustcoat, a brief case and a list of accusations and demands pre-scripted on paper and attached to a clipboard. This first act of a 3 act play is an oblique and indirect reflection upon purgatory as an intellectual concept. It is as if Dorfman himself is struggling to ascertain exactly the meat and potatoes of his play, and you have to listen very closely to what's being discussed in order to glean from a minimal amount of information the meaning of this work. (A demand upon the part of the playwright that does not go unrewarded, as the second act reveals its dissection of human failings in lyrical and descriptive dialogue that illustrates much of the previous act's oblique dissertation).
As a two-hander, Dorfman's script is nicely conceived. Just as the roles switch during each act, from interrogator to person being interrogated, Dorfman manages to not only convey a sense that the Man and Woman we see in the first act may not necessarily be the same Woman and Man we see in the second act, but also, that an eternity may have passed since each revealed the tragic details of their murderous and conceited lives. By the beginning of act 3, we could be dealing with any one of the following: a male employee of purgatory who role-plays the Woman's murdered husband for the purpose of assisting the woman on her path to the Promised land: a woman and her murdered husband, the same woman also having murdered her children, while the conceited husband now attempts to forgive his dead wife for killing him and their children, in order for both to assist one another on their journey to the Promised land: Humanity itself, symbolised by an archetypal Man and Woman, two people attempting to find peace by confessing their sins, (and our own), within a Roman Catholic doctrine that itself is hypocritical, and therefore a sin, only to discover that the wilderness without reflects the wilderness within. That is, systemic and doctrinaire thought, particularly in relation to ontological matters, (or the spirit of things), can only ever grasp a part of the monumental sadness and indescribable futility of Death, and the journey toward infinity. To assert otherwise in relation to spiritual matters, as many religions do, is just another example of the vanity of human wishes, or complete stupidity.
As a difficult but rewarding ascent toward a path between doctrinaire thinking and something resembling pure truth, Purgatorio is a fearless dissection of religious hypocrisy that consistently yearns for something other than the usual bullshit human beings are subjected to during their lives. The play itself does not always succeed in articulating a vision of what resides beyond the smug walls constructed by religious powerbrokers. But then, it can't be expected to either. For if it did somehow suggest that death and infinity could be articulated in a clear and precise manner, then the play itself would become a mere description of that which by necessity, cannot be described. More important is its desire to see through the facade. If it so happens that in doing so Purgatorio's characters are eternally damned for trying, then the distinction of Hoy Polloy's production of Arial Dorfman's play should not be in doubt.
Purgatorio
Writer: Ariel Dorfman
Director: Ben Starick
Performers: Natalie Carr & Glen Hancox
Set & Costume: Kat Chan
Light: Tom Willis & Bevan Emmett
Sound: Jim Westlake
Stage Management: Ness Harwood
August 7 - 29, Mechanics Institute, Melb.
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