THE BIG DRY
THE BIG DRY, Ensemble Theatre and ATYP at the Ensemble Theatre, 4 June-2July 2016. Photography by Clare Hawley: above - Rory Potter, Noah Sturzaker and Sofia Nolan; right - Richard Sydenham
This co-production between the Ensemble and ATYP is not simply between the two companies: it also involves the artist directors of each – Mark Kilmurry (adapter of the novel) and Fraser Corfield, director of the production. Together they have created 75 minutes of absorbing drama.
Kilmurry has said he read Tony Davis’s dystopian novel in one sitting and immediately saw its potential as a stage drama. Corfield agreed and here it is: intense, troubling, gripping, sad and occasionally funny. It’s an uncompromising and credible vision of a climatically changed and challenged future. And in that future are children – vulnerable, abandoned, frightened and determined to survive.
George (Rory Potter) and his young brother Beeper (Jack Andrew alternating with Noah Sturzaker) live in a decaying suburban house, hiding from the authorities lest they be taken into “care” in the mysterious absence of their parents. They have a stash of tinned food and eke out a failing water supply – stored in glass jars, tasting of rust and mud and roughly filtered by the ingenious and precociously cautious George.
As well as prowling welfare officers, the boys live in fear of marauding outlanders and the increasingly frequent “blasters” – monstrous sand storms that threaten everything in their path. They have a routine worked out when the winds begins to howl: clinging to one another under the sink, wearing tradies’ dust masks. It’s the best they can do, but already Beeper has an ominous cough and brings up black muck with it.
An itinerant rabbitoh happens by (Richard Sydenham), an even sadder figure than the boys as they at least have hope and innocence. And across the street and finally in their faces, is another kid – a bit older than George – whose name is Emily (Sofia Nolan) and whose street smarts and attitude are a carapace that has enabled her to endure thus far.
It is apparent to Emily that parents, niceties, rules and certainty are a thing of the past. When not annoying the guarded George she befriends little Beeper and tries to make them see there’s no point waiting for their dad – he’s long gone or dead. They must try to head for the city and the place where they’ve heard it rains and the land is green.
The poignancy of Beeper’s inability to understand “rain” or to remember grass is painful. That these possibilities are no longer science fiction is shocking. George tries to get their reclusive neighbour Mr Carey to help, to no avail. Mr Scarey – as Beeper calls him – is yet another broken adult (Richard Sydenham again).
The Big Dry is no fairy story even as the three youngsters – separately and together – tremulously rise above terror and chaos to become the heroes of their own stories. In these roles Rory Potter, Sofia Nolan and, on the Sunday matinee I caught, Noah Sturzaker, are powerful and convincing. A generous and genuine Richard Sydenham makes fleeting yet telling contributions to the parched and all too probable glimpse into the future. Their variously shudder-making filthy, bruised and bloody states are a credit to make-up artist Peggy Carter.
Set designer Rita Carmody has delivered a wretched ruin of a kitchen where the stink of dust, loneliness and fear is almost visible in the gloom and occasional moments of ferocious sunshine (lighting Benjamin Brockman). The sounds of the kids’ scarcely remembered past – wind chimes – are often drowned out by the roar of the blasters and snatches of music, mainly Janis Joplin, that are more nightmarish than any kind of comfort (sound design: Daryl Wallis).
Playwright Mark Kilmurry and director Fraser Corfield – with four tremendous actors – have fashioned Tony Davis’s apocalyptic tale into a riveting thriller and touching drama (for 12+ and adults). Recommended.
