Review: Escaped Alone delves into lurid visions of global annihilation


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Sally’s rather poised persona breaks into an obsessive monologue where she drowns us in her single-minded hatred of cats. Lena’s constant reassurances evaporate into depressive reverie. And statuesque Vi confides in the audience, detailing the aftermath of a catastrophe – one involving domestic violence – that has torn her world apart.


Three layers of dramatic action emerge. Light, avoidant surface chat plays over subjective unravelling and personal armageddon, with a black comic buffet of dystopian possibilities erupting from under them.


It makes perfect dramatic sense as a kind of reverse pyramid of repression, and one aspect of the production that militates against aesthetic cohesiveness is the lack of surface precision. Escaped Alone is written with British reserve and mannerism in mind, and the performers, talented as they are, don’t hit upon a convincing Australian analogue for it.


Part of that is the design, which arranges the four women on astroturf on an elevated stage, chairs facing out rather than each other. Subtle interactions get stretched and sometimes smothered by that setup, compromising the natural ebb and flow of conversation.


And you need the ordinariness to be rendered with extraordinary accuracy, if the absurdity and menace of the substrate is to be fully realised.


Article source: http://smh.com.au/sport/basketball/melbourne-united-forward-tai-wesley-surges-into-key-role-ahead-of-nbl-opener-20171004-gyu71d.html

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