Only Eugene Gilfelder gives us a 3 dimensional reading of the character. If he could not bring us truth, I would have settled for some technique, but it seems he graduated from the “Air Stewardess Pointing and Stiff Hand Gestures School of Acting”. Steve Mouzakis (Gerardo) is an award-winning actor, but it isn’t apparent here. Instead she brought bland, almost dis-connection, when every fibre of her being should be screaming for truth. We know the actor is capable of great depth, yet she didn’t bring it on stage for the opening night. It’s as if she’s mildly pissed off that Miranda stole her shopping list and made her late for the supermarket. Her character has endured unspeakable horrors, and yet there is no sense of pain, or fear of going mad, even deeply hidden. Susie Porter is an actor of considerable charm and ability. Is this by design? Or is it just impossible to do such a play with local accents? There’s no way of knowing. Everything is undercooked and appears fake. Indeed you would be hard pressed to find a moment of truth in the entire play, save for Miranda’s relief when Paulina’s panties are removed from his throat after ten performance minutes of gagging him. Actors make moves without motivation that play against emotional truth, sit down when the text is crying out for movement. And there is odd blocking in the strange 3-roomed revolving set, each room triangular with two doors. We know Dorfman’s thrust lies in allegorical sub-text (does Miranda actually represent the sins of the fascist regime, whether he himself is innocent?) and his language is simple… but it’s never boring, as this production makes it. I am trying to understand how Director Leticia Caceres, a woman of great passion (and surely sympathetic to the subject matter) has helmed something so dry and ho-hum. We are torn between believing first Paulina’s avenging angel and then Miranda’s innocent in danger. But is she right, or crazy? And when Miranda confesses, under duress in a “Kangaroo Court,” is he guilty or merely an innocent man trying to save his life? There are no definitive answers….no absolute truths, just as there are none in life itself. From only the sound of his voice, Paulina is convinced he is the leader of the men who raped and tortured her, a doctor who played Schubert while torturing her. Into their lives comes a doctor, Roberto Miranda, a good Samaritan who has helped Gerardo with a flat tyre. Her husband, Gerardo, is a newly appointed Justice Minister in the democratic government, charged with investigating unlawful abductions and killings under the previous regime. And the liberties taken with the ending in the final scene of the play would not, I feel certain, be to Mr Dorfman’s liking.īasically the story concerns Paulina, still traumatised and mentally fragile fifteen years after her capture by fascists, which resulted in torture and rape. Please do not judge it by this lack-lustre, passionless production.ĭorfman intended the play to unfold as a “what happens next” political thriller, with life and death stakes, but the production flounders after the first five minutes and instead we yawn through tepid and terribly middleclass performances to what should be a shocking (if ambiguous) conclusion, but isn’t. 18th July - 22nd August, 2015Īriel Dorfman’s powerful and visceral play, set in a post Fascist, newly democratic, South American country (Dorfman is from Chile), is full of passion and intensity and themes of vengeance, paranoia, forgiveness and moral ambiguity.
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