Dealing With Clair
Dealing With Clair, SBW Stables Theatre/Griffin Independent July 24-August 15, 2009; www.griffintheatre.com.au or (02) 8002 4772.
Martin Crimp is an English playwright whose work is rapidly gaining recognition, here and in the UK. The STC has a production of The City (2008) on stage at the moment, while Dealing With Clair dates from 1998. Not that you’d know it. With minimal tweaking of dollar values and specifically English references, the play is of this moment and of this city – Sydney – without ever exactly saying so.
The basic story line arises from a true event: the disappearance of London real estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, who met a prospective buyer outside a Fulham house in July 1986 and has never been seen again. From that Crimp leaps off into the unknown and weaves tantalising and seemingly unrelated themes and motifs into and around this mystery – and creates even more.
Clair (Laura Brent) is a smart young real estate agent on the rise in a rising market – what can go wrong? Today’s customer is James (Boris Brkic), an urbane, older foreign man whose minimally flirtatious and arrogant manner is attractive, in a barely tangible way. He is looking for a London house and his wife apparently trusts him with the purchase and won’t be coming to look at it. If Clair were a little wiser and slightly less cocksure this alone should ring alarm bells.
The house for sale belongs to an equally smart young couple, Liz (Sarah Becker) and her husband Mike (Ed Wightman); unlike Clair, however, they are ethical and concerned to do the right thing. They will point out that the back garden is a bit gloomy (south facing) and they aren’t gardeners – they have planted a vine – and they certainly won’t be tempted to gazump a buyer. Or will they?
Liz and Mike are moving to somewhere more convenient, and cheaper, not that the latter word is mentioned. They have a baby who occasionally wails from upstairs via the baby monitor; it’s unlikely she has seen her mother since birth as the au pair, Anna (Kelly Paterniti), is called upon to deal with her whenever she squawks. Anna is a sulky miss who slops around in a wrap and sneaks illicit smokes almost as often as her uppity employer. It’s a happy household. Completing it, from time to time are Ashley, Vittorio and Toby (Josh McConville) a boyfriend, blow-in and handyman, respectively who lust after Anna with varying degrees of success. Add to that a subliminal running gag that couples the crumbling house with the crumbling spine of a prospective buyer, and the snippy mores of late Thatcherite London are not only effectively satirized but easily transposed to 2009 Sydney.
The subterranean layers of the play are a series of meditation on the vanishing point – in art, life, morals and railway lines. It’s an interesting concept in these circumstances as a vanishing point eventually arises – and is at first visible then not – in virtually every aspect and relationship in the play. Clair’s poky investment apartment backs onto a busy railway line; the deafening clatter is an uncomfortably graphic Doppler shift effect in Steve Toulmin’s sound design, as well as the cause of much sniggering from the property-savvy couple. It’s also a metaphor for Mike and Liz’s attitude to their morals: a vanishing point is rapidly reached when more money appears on the horizon. Just like the disappearing lines, their probity is an authentic illusion; it’s a neat idea and an appealing conceit.
Most dramatically, the vanishing point manifests itself in the unusual set design by William Bobbie Stewart. It cages the already tiny Stables space in a skewed metal framework around which wires are tightly strung. (Verity Hampson’s equally dramatic lighting makes the space, by turn, a chic, edgy dwelling and an abstract representation of endless series of vanishing points and shadows. It’s very effective and a clever idea.
Director Cristabel Sved has drawn a fine interpretation of this tricky and deceptive play from her cast. They inhabit their roles with conviction and shrewd attention to comedy and the nuances of the script and production. There is a bit of a sag in the middle, but on the whole, Dealing With Clair is a rewarding and unexpected entertainment. Full of great ideas, painfully accurate observation of human behaviour and a great many sweet-sour laughs. Recommended.
