by Noemie Huttner-Koros
Directed
by Andrew Sutherland
Performed
by Rali Maynard, Zoe Garciano, Phoebe Eames and Gabriel Critti-Schnaars
Blue
Room Theatre
7 – 25 November
A small
cell of four young climate activists take action to coincide with a federal
election to protest galloping climate change and the part the fossil fuel
industry plays in it.
In the
dead of night, on the wrong side of a security fence, they break into a gas
pipeline. It soon becomes clear that their ambitions and methods are wildly
different…
Scroll
back months, and Democracy Repair
Services follows the trail that leads the quartet to that night at the
pipeline. We meet Viv (Rali Maynard), a political operative with a playbook
she’s intent on following, the sweet, uncertain Fin (Gabriel Critti-Schnaars), the combustible Elena (Zoe
Garciano) and playful Billy (Phoebe Eames).
The story of their fruitless attempts at
small-scale disruption and growing frustration as the summer heat rises and the
election draws nearer exposes the fractures within the group and, more
generally, the different and often conflicting ways political action gestates
and finds its expression.
There’s no doubt about the commitment of
the DRS team from its writer and presenter by Noemie Huttner-Koros, its
director Andrew Sutherland and the young cast to the story and the issues it
explores, and there are authentic and engaging performances, (notably from
Critti-Schnaars).
Sutherland is a skillful theatre maker as
well as an audacious one, and the structure and pace of his staging does justice
to Huttner-Koros’s text and purpose. The production benefits from impressive
creative work from the Audio-visual designer Edwin Sitt and the set, sound and
lighting designs of Molly Werner, David Sewart and Jasmine Lifford
respectively.
The quandary, though, is whether the
effective representation of the characters, their thoughts and actions, which
DRS undoubtedly delivers, comes at the expense of theatrical clarity and
effectiveness.
I’m not insisting that DRS be a
traditional “well-made play”, or that its action and dialogue follow conventional
paths, but too many ideas, too often repeated, become a jumble that’s hard to
untangle into a cogent line of thought.
That, of course, is the real world of
political activism of all shades, but that’s real-world accuracy at odds with theatrical
lucidity.
A critical pillar of the Blue Room’s
charter is to give voice to disparate voices, and it’s at its best when they
are young and challenging. For that reason alone, Democracy Repair Services is
a worthwhile and necessary work.
And for its examination of the greatest
issue of our time – and especially its impact on the young – it demands our
attention.
