Reviewed Tuesday 19th November 2013
The State Theatre Company of South Australia commissioned,
Maggie Stone, a new play by award winning Australian playwright, Caleb Lewis, the first of his works to be commissioned by this company for their first season under their new Artistic Director, Geordie Brookman, who also directed this production. The result is a superb evening of thought and emotion provoking theatre that will stay with audiences for a long time after.
Maggie Stone is as hard as nails, unfeeling, unloved, self-opinionated, bigoted, and a racist, who lives with only a lizard for company. She is also a Loans Officer for a bank and her name is entirely appropriate as, trying to get her to approve a loan, is like trying to get blood from a stone. Then something entirely unexpected happens, and her stony heart bleeds for a family of refugees, whose lives she has ruined by rejecting a small loan.
Shedrick Yarkpai plays Prosper Deng, a Sudanese man who comes for a loan to have his car repaired so that he can get across to the far side of town each day to work, in order to pay off debts. She turns him down and, in desperation, he robs a small shop, armed with a plastic toy pistol, but the police take no chances, and fatally shoot him.
Yarkpai also plays Prosper's son, Benedict, known as Benny. He is full of anger towards the owner of the shop, Mahira Sadat, played by Ansuya Nathan, and often hangs around there to try to terrorise her. She is made of tougher stuff, though.
When visiting Amath for lunch, Maggie collapses and is rushed to hospital, to learn that a lifetime of junk food, soft drinks, smoking, and alcohol has caught up with her. The abrasive attitude that she has always shown the world begins to soften, and she becomes more determined to do what she can to right the wrong she inflicted on the Deng family.
Benny's mother Amath Deng, played by Sara Zwangobani, is at her wit's end with him and berates him for his actions in Mahira's shop and his general behaviour, but she is often distracted by her baby daughter and the financial problems left to her by her late husband. Having failed at the bank, Prosper went to Leo Hermes, played by
Mark Saturno, a loan shark of the worst kind.
Georgina Spack, played by Genevieve Mooy, attends the same church as Amath and claims to be her friend, but what we see is the worst of the Christian do-gooders, taking over Amath's life, ordering her about, and wanting to look like a good Samaritan to the rest of the congregation. When the chips are down and Maggie asks her to give real help to Amath, she dives for cover.
Caleb Lewis wrote the role of Maggie with Kris McQuade in mind, and she does him proud, in a thoroughly absorbing and powerful performance. It is wonderful to watch McQuade take her character through such a wide range of situations, subtly and gradually showing what effect they are having upon her. It is at the end, in retrospect, that one actually realises how far Maggie has come in this journey, so magical is McQuade's performance.
Sara Zwangobani also gives a sterling performance as Amath, growing in stature as the play progresses and finding that inner strength to turn her life, and those of her children to a positive future. Zwangobani presents all of the pain and suffering of her past in Africa and her present in Australia after the death of her husband then superbly transits to a strong, independent woman in a well measured and deeply emotional performance.
Shedrick Yarkpai, who has been working with Independent Theatre for the last few years under the training and guidance of Rob Croser, gives a strong performance as the angry young man, hitting out at the world, until he discovers that he is not the hard man he thought he was after Leo gets hold of him. He demonstrates Benny's frustrations and confusion in a fiery characterisation.
Mark Saturno, as Leo, is the real hard man of the piece, and that bat that he is carrying in one scene is not a sign that he plays league baseball. Saturno makes his Leo a frighteningly real character, Shylock and Fagin looking like rank beginners in comparison.
Genevieve Mooy's Georgina is a nasty piece of work, turning Amath into a pet project, bossing her around and trying to control her life under the guise of doing "what is best for her" which is, of course, merely what makes Georgina look good to her friends from church. Mooy does a fine job of presenting one of those "Christians" whom we have all encountered, without descending into caricature, which would be all too easy in this role.
Now living in England, and working there and in America, Ansuya Nathan has recently been appearing with State Theatre, a wise move by the company and a good thing for Adelaide audiences. Although the role of the shopkeeper, Mahira, is not large, she makes her mark in the role, adding yet another committed and convincing performance to this production.
Geordie Brookman is to be congratulated, once again, for his skill in finding a cast that brings balance to a production, and for his direction that ensures a cohesive vision for the work that is adopted by all of those involved. He has garnered much praise in his first year as Artistic Director for this company, with a string of high quality productions, and next year's programme is looking good, too.
Victoria Lamb's set deserves mention, a huge framework, a scaffold of thin timbers that Chris Petridis lights in an ever changing kaleidoscope of effects, with strip lighting along the bottom of each wall of lattice, lights at the rear and a range of coloured washes. There is a strong visual background created by this.
There is still time to get a ticket, with over a week left in the season, but it would be well to book quickly as word is spreading fast.
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