Sydney Festival - The Fence
THE FENCE, venue: a backyard in Parramatta, meeting point: Riverside Theatres; January 14-30.
Urban Theatre Projects have previously scored two successes with Back Home (2006) and The Last Highway (2008). Chances are, you might think, they could pull it off again. The Fence is the latest from the company and it begins with some promise: arrive at Parramatta Riverside and be directed on a short walk, along the river path, up to the old King’s School, through the boarded up environs and finally to a cyclone-wire enclosed paddock. Along the way you get your tickets checked, you get a stamp on your hand and are gently chivvied along and begin to understand what it might feel like to be an illegal, a steer on the way to the abattoir, or even a reluctant brat at a bleak boarding school.
But wait, there’s more. Once in the paddock, where high-powered lights illuminate the outdoor cocktail bar-cum-waiting room, you can buy a drink or not, and chat with your mates while wondering what will happen next. Beyond the fencing, a steeply raked set of bleachers can be seen and that’s the next destination: not a bolt in the back of the head for recalcitrant cattle, but a politely proffered plastic poncho in case of rain, and a squirt of Aerogard in case of mozzies.
Choose a seat and settle down to watch the preliminary action on stage. The stage is actually a grassed area in the centre of an L-shape formed by two boarded up brick buildings in the school precinct. Within that area a small suburban fibro house has been built. It is cut away to reveal the interior: a kitchen-living room, and outside, a seat, a fire and a shed. In this setting real life is then enacted. Four friends and/or housemates have dinner, watch footy on telly and crack a few beers. The catalyst arrives: a long lost sister who’s just blown in from ten years away.
To this point, the pace and events has been painfully realistic – somnolent and featureless. A daze-like plod to the fridge, back to the sofa, back to the fridge, out to the garden, to the shed and an occasional amble to the perimeter to stare into nothing. With the arrival of trouble (sister) the audience shifts in anticipation of something happening. But no, sadly not. The gals of the household decide on the spur of the moment to go out to a pub for a drink, then one by one, change their minds and don’t go. This is the dramatic highlight of the evening.
-c750x442.jpg)
The writer, director and dramaturg of this piece appear to have not a clue that the reason why playwrights and directors are employed in the theatre is not some form of elitism but rather that everyday life, in its honest entirety, is actually not dramatic or theatrical and is therefore dull as toothache to watch. And structure, artifice, scripting and characters are necessary to make “real” worth watching.
The blurb says “The Fence is an explosive story of love, belonging and dispossession.” Unfortunately, somewhere along the way the explosion sputtered and conked out, while love, belonging and dispossession are lost in a miasma of politically correct attitudes towards belonging and dispossession. Theatre and entertainment have been sacrificed to worthiness and at around 80 minutes of the 90+ minute running time I felt an (almost) overwhelming need to scream, so painful was the sensation of boredom and pointlessness – just like real life, I guess.
