It's the music that sets the tone for Verve studio's production of Raimondo Cortese's play(s) Roulette. Quiet and reflective, tinged with hurt and melancholy, the Theatreworks stage is demarcated by four easily recognisable types of furniture. Behind table and chairs, park bench, airline seats and plush hotel lounge suite, there is stretched a taut piece of scrim. Behind this, and lit by a lonely half-light, characters linger and malinger as each traverses a windswept space in preparation for a confrontation with their nemesis. Cortese's dialogue is remarkable for what it doesn't say. That is, as each character bobs and weaves during their subsequent verbal stoush it becomes apparent to an attentive audience that the more shit these people talk, the more they will reveal themselves; thereby prompting an unravelling of their lives. Combined with some brave and concentrated performances from the Verve studio graduates, Roulette is an unsettling night in the theatre.
Cortese does not appear to have written his twelve plays with the intention of having each interwoven into one performance. And even though director Darren Natale has chosen to work with only five of the twelve, at times, a generality of tone creeps into this production. Inconsolable is a chat session in a cafe between a man and woman who have never before met, but who are obviously attracted to one another. Both are reproachable figures. Tom sips coffee while pretending to read Joyce's Ulysses. Kat is a worry-wart cum bull in a china shop who challenges Tom's addiction to nicotine, and his deluded sense of self. Meanwhile, on a park bench a short distance to the right, Break-In is a study in a self-destructive, sadomasochistic relationship. Cam and Julie, humping one another, yet not far from being homeless, discuss the pros and cons of the new girl in Cam's life. Desperate for a simple human relationship, one unattainable in an arbitrary world, Julie denigrates Cam to the point where his pretensions disintegrate. Promising love and friendship, Cam is exposed as only being there for the sex. Characteristically though, it is only when he reveals this primal intention that Julie admires him most.
As this interwoven performance progresses through the plays Hotel, Borneo, and Night, the generality of tone mentioned earlier permeates each exchange. This is partly a consequence of some of the performers not nailing the existential angst that always lurks within Cortese's creations. And even though each set of characters is distinctive in type and social status, the writer, as always, creeps into the action. In Hotel, a hard-nut, matronly cleaner from the old school, one whose current beau is explained away as "...a root between two roots...", lays down the law to her younger, up and coming protege'. Driven fractionally mad by the utter tedium of her existence, Tara eventually throttles Jane on the presumption that she threatens the security of Tara's employment. In Borneo, the sophisticated psychotherapist Angelica eventually finds communion with the carefree air-head Sal. Or so the audience is led to believe. (In fact, Sal is a smack courier intent on ridding herself of any chance she will be caught importing dope). What emerges during the ensuing conversation between the two women is the predatory characteristic of human relationships, even when such is a consequence of an apparently innocuous generational gap.
As a vehicle for a graduate production director Natale makes a wise choice in selecting Roulette to showcase Verve studio's acting talent. Production requirements are minimal, allowing for the graduate actors to express their craft in relation to Cortese's demanding linguistics. And even though each performer is more than adequate in their own role, there are several noteworthy performance. Gabrielle Brennan and Hannah Smith work very well together, and might consider amplifying their performance relationship beyond drama school. But it is during a moment of drunken decline in Night, a play about flippant sexual teasing and the drastic consequences this can have for the repressed homosexual, that Hayley Birch delivers a sustained period of compelling authenticity as the tragic, involuted lesbian Rachel, deathly uncomfortable with being on the prowl. Too much booze, not enough love, sexual frustration and social prejudice cohere into a transformational moment during which Birch, as her character Rachel, appears to be somewhere else other than on stage. It is the pathetic monster lurking behind the Pamela Anderson inspired 'Valley girl'. It is a moment Birch should document and remember, particularly in relation to how she felt and what she imagined during the conjuring of her creation. Even so, Cortese's writing for the most part is an indirect phantasmagoria of the human capacity for patheticism. Given this, Birch may very well have found her inspiration residing amongst the chance encounters between characters unbalanced during this entertaining production of Roulette.
Roulette
Writer: Raimondo Cortese
Director: Darren Natale
Tech: Canada White
Performers: Louise Mercer,
Robert Fragnito, Kelly Hynes,
Nigel Jordan, Gabrielle Brennan,
Hannah Smith, Jane Pitt,
Victoria Morgan, Elisha Saporito &
Hayley Birch
Theatreworks, Nov 18 - 21, Melb.
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