Set in the gritty American West, the story alternates between two families after a severe incident of spousal abuse leaves all their lives altered until the final collision at an isolated cabin.
The two families, one composed of Baylor, Meg, Beth, and Mike, the other composed of Lorraine, Sally, Frankie, and Jake are connected by the marriage of Jake and Beth.
Beths beating and subsequent hospitalisation at the hands of Jake initiates the beginning of the play. Exploring family dysfunction and the nature of love, the play follows Jake as he searches for meaning after Beth, and her family, as they struggle with Beth's brain damage.
Directed by Matt Longman and featuring Shell Berg, David Bowyer, Ben Kotovski-Steele, Marsha Holt, Alan Kennedy, Alex Jones, Joy Northover and Julia Hern
23, 24, 25 June. 1, 2 July Midland Junction Arts Centre 276 Great Eastern hwy (cnr Cale st) Midland
First the story. I am not sure whether it has been altered in any way or not because I have not seen the original but what I felt is the plot seemed to be great in the first 2/3s, felt like it was building up to something very interesting, a climax. But it sort of just fizzled down with any substantial explosion of clarity of where the plot was heading. Even the people beside me were saying, "So what was all that about?" Perhaps it takes a very observant or smarter person to get what was happening at the end. Well, I felt I got the message pretty well, unless there was any double entendres going on. But I think not, what happened in the end is actually all the characters are just plain crazy and they suit each other just fine. I feel it may work in some instances, not in this story. It just felt like lazy story-telling. Sort of like, 'let's just wrap this shit up because I can't be bothered to resolve all the tensioned dynamics created in the first 2 acts.' Anyways that's what I have to say about the plot, first 2 acts great, third act crap. The dialogue and pacing was good though.
A great positive I have to say that the acting was great though, the characters were acted out pretty well. However I question the need for American accents. It was clear some of the actors were struggling with it. If they adapted the whole play to be 'Australianized' I feel they would have been more authentic and believable. Perhaps it is a copyright issue that they cannot do this. But still, a great job by BlakYak, they are one of the best community theatre groups in Western Australia. I will watch pretty much anything they put on.
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