Review: REASONABLE DOUBT at Holden Street Theatres

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Wednesday 2nd November 2022.

Reasonable Doubt, at Holden Street Theatres, is an impressive and forensic return of a play and production I enjoyed immensely at the Bakehouse. It is not to be missed. This remount occurs as Australians have been made aware, by the collapse of a high-profile trial in the Eastern states, of what can go wrong in our age-old jury system when one jury member misbehaves. It brings back the original cast and director, Tony Knight, as a reminder of just how effective STARC Productions can be in bringing a complex story to life. You cannot look away and must not miss a single word.

Marc Clement is Mitchell. He is the juror who pushed the jury to acquit a young man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend in a carefully controlled car crash. His stubborn behaviour led to a jury being unable to reach a unanimous verdict, and the trial was aborted. This time there will be a judgment day.

On the occasion of the retrial, he meets up again with another member of that hung jury. Stefanie Rossi is Anna, another juror. He's an executive and she's a beautician, two random people brought together to sit in judgment on another person. Anna has been attracted to Mitchell from the start. She claims to have arranged a reunion of the original jury to coincide with the retrial of the same case. She, a little tipsy from the reunion, is in a hotel room with Mitchell. The room is, apparently, a permanent booking by his company. This could be the start of a long-delayed sexual encounter, and that energy is certainly present, but playwright Suzie Miller takes the story from that cliché into a complex investigation of truth, responsibility and conscience. She's a lawyer. This is her chance to explore so much more than evidence in a court case.

Mitchell, apparently, came late to the hotel and missed all the others. Then the story unfolds. What do you need to know? How much can I give away? There was no reunion. Anna has set everything up so that she can spend time with Mitchell. It turns out that Mitchell knew this all along. As Anna talks of jurors who were at the meeting, Mitchell can tell her that one was overseas and one had died. He'd been watching the hotel from across the street carefully timing his encounter with her. So what is going on? She is certainly curious about his stance in the original trial. Mitchell confesses. What he reveals is a story of bribery, corruption, and tragedy. His confession to his wife leads to her suicide.

Letting the audience sit in judgment is not new. Terror, presented on the same stage only days ago by Red Phoenix is a clear example of this but you can trace it back to the Greeks and such plays as Oedipus the King. This taut and cleverly constructed two-hander calls into question the integrity of judicial practice but shows how, in Mitchell's case, abusing the system leads to tragedy. He is pursued by the furies of old and Anna takes on a mythic role as the voice of conscience. It's not the first time Stefanie Rossi has taken on such a duty, if you recall Venus in Fur.

Book online for this engrossing piece of theatre. Take any Port Road bus to bus stop 8 and walk through to Manton Street. Holden Street runs alongside the stadium. The 117 bus will drop you at the corner of Holden Street. That's stop 7. There are roadworks, so be careful how you tread.