The Call
The Call Griffin Theatre Company at the SBW Stables Theatre; 6 May- 6 June; phone: 8002 4772or www.griffintheatre.com.au; originally produced by Melbourne Workers' Theatre and touring to The Q, Queanbeyan and Civic Theatre, Wagga Wagga
The playwright, Patricia Cornelius is a well known proponent of tough, working class, tell it like it is and stick it up the bourgeoisie drama. As such, she is successful and this play is an interesting take on the genre. It's inspired by David Hicks’ story: the ordinary, aimless, lost soul who found one in an unexpected and, as it turned out, rather disastrous place.
In this instance Gary (Josh McConville) is one of those workers whose life is almost as empty and grim as those of the chooks he processes on the slaughterhouse line. He makes the mistake of looking one in the eye one day and her fate – to be strung up by her feet, beheaded and plucked after a miserable life spent laying 20,000 eggs – suddenly gets to him.
His mates and co-workers are untouched by this inconvenient rush of humanity and are not pleased by the change in him. They too are battery organisms of a kind: confined in the tiny space allotted to them by society and, thanks to ill-education, confined also to dull and dangerous jobs. Small wonder, then, that they don’t give a flying f**k for the chooks; or anything else either.
His mates, Aldo (Hazem Shammas) and Chunk (Chris Ryan) are the kind of good blokes who are probably seething quietly at the current furore over star footballers’ sexual antics. Their outrage, if expressed, would be that their heroes are being baited and brought down for activities they would leap at, given half the chance. When Gary shows poofy tendencies (kindness, concern and a certain articulate sadness at their collective fate) they taunt him cruelly. Being a normal bloke, Gary offers little resistance and is soon back hooning around, boozing, barfing and nicking cars. Advance Australia where.
Denise (Sarah Becker) is the chick on the periphery and the only one with dreams and aspirations. Gary is attracted to them – or her – it’s unclear which. They fall in love with some aspect of the other and take the next step towards their ancestral Dreaming: a house, a car, marriage and kids. The result is hell. Now she is trapped and he is helpless.
Her yearning for something beyond herself is stifled by the day-to-day necessities of two children. His is even less focused than before until he sees workmates whipping out the prayer mats and genuflecting towards Mecca. Suddenly he finds meaning, to the distress and bewilderment of his wife, and their Aussie life is on its way to hell in an Islamic handcart.
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This transition is sudden and unconvincing, as are most of the transitions and switches of direction in the play. The language is properly expletive-heavy and uninteresting as only the language of the underclass can be. It might be authentic but it’s like being belted about the ears with a sock-full of wet sand. And about as exciting.
It’s undoubtedly politically incorrect to dislike the play or find it dreary, trite and predictable, but there you go. Being an unreconstructed honky whose interest in the underclass is confined to keeping them at bay, this play doesn’t do a lot for me. The performances, on the other hand, and the direction, by Lee Lewis, are terrific.
As is so often the case, the actors and creatives do the text far greater honour than it really deserves. The same can be said for the minimal, efficient and stylish work by designers Colleen Reeks and William Bobby Stewart and lighting designer Luiz Pampolha. Composition-sound by Stefan Gregory is effective and the whole is a lot greater than the sum of its parts. The parts being mainly flawed in the script department.
A lot of people enjoyed the production the night I was there. I didn’t much, but that’s probably more about my antipathy to amoeba-level thug society, than anything else. The play is uneven, however, and no amount of PCness disguises that. I also suspect that the intimation that David Hicks is the inspiration would make a lot of people more sympathetic and less critical than they otherwise might have been. Allah be praised anyway because it’s not very long.
