You’ll be guaranteed to be singing the Cold Chisel classic after attending this production, but sadly the theatrical version doesn’t quite rise to the heights of its musical namesake.
Written and produced by Aussie dramatist Wayne Tunks, Flame Trees is a story about the unforgiving nature of country towns. Past actions are not easily forgotten, as protagonist Tess Ashley discovers when she returns home. ‘We share some history, this town and I,’ – indeed. Fumbling immediately into contact with her old flame, and his new fiancé, Tess’ homecoming motivation is unclear. Just what did she do and why can’t anyone forgive?
Tunks’ script draws you in, as the story twists and turns, and the dialogue has a soapie-ish quality that is easy to follow. But this style also makes some of the exposition a little clunky and leaves it to the actors to bring real depth to the characters.
Unfortunately, the cast mostly struggle with this, and much of the dialogue feels hollow and rushed. The delivery was also a little soft – everyone save Wayne Tunks (Nathan Ashley) could have projected more.
Isabel Dickson, as Tess, is promising, but never seems quite at ease in the character. As her former love interest and pub-owner, Andy Sutton, Jace Pickard holds back a bit too much, giving a more filmic (as opposed to theatrical) performance.
Rebecca Clay, in the role of Val Crane, is one of the stronger cast members. Her quiet exhaustion with life is evident through her physicality and she commits well to the text. Ryan Brown (Matt Sutton) is confident and casual, but potentially mis-cast against his brother (Pickard). Karina Bracken, as local police officer, Monica Jacobsen, is less confident and would have benefited from stronger direction.
The standout performance comes from Tunks as Nathan, a grown man with an unspecified disability. Such roles are never easy to inhabit, but Tunks does so capably and respectfully. His physical ticks are well-practised so as to appear natural, and his vocal affliction is obvious but does not render him unintelligible. Unfortunately, Director Simeon Yialeloglou has not been able to lift the performances of the rest of the cast to the level of Tunks; his energy is such that it leaves the rest of the actors looking a little flat.
The other concern with this production is the set. While there are only three primary locations to manage (police station, local pub, living room), the script jumps frequently between them, making it challenging to stage in a small space like The Depot Theatre. The large, heavy bar set at the rear of the stage appears a fantastic choice at first, the epitome of the country pub, but becomes unwieldy and distracting when pushed back against the wall to differentiate the living room. Likewise, the wooden chairs and table that are rotated between stage right and centre at every scene change might solve a budget issue but ultimately do not create the right ambience. Perhaps a stronger choice might have been to divide the stage in three, retaining each of the locations and using lighting to direct the audience. Yes, this would have restricted the space the actors had to work in, but given the psychological nature of the story this could have added to the intensity of the performance.
Overall, watching the show felt a little bit like watching a rehearsal; it seemed like there were still a few kinks to work out with the scene changes and the actors weren’t really committing to every line. As the play progresses, there are moments of real agitation. But they miss the mark when the actors fail to raise the volume and pace of their speech and are kept at arms’ length from one another by clumsy staging directions.
However, it is nice to see less experienced directors get the chance to hone their craft on real stages. There are some promising flashes of talent here (the phone conversation between Val and Monica in which they pace around each other while in completely separate locations is one example) and Yialeloglou will no doubt continue onto bigger and better things.
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Flame Trees is playing at The Depot Theatre until July 2. Tickets available from: www.thedepotheatre.com
The reviewer attended the production on Thursday 16 June.
Photo credit: Isobel Markus-Dunworth
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