One Flea Spare
NUTS
ANU
Arts Centre, May 14-17
If
this play doesn’t win awards and accolades for the fabulous set (designed by
Gowrie Varma and Ellie Greenwood), there is no justice in this world. The
jumble of furniture and picture frames hanging from the ceiling and hammered to
the walls screams chaos. This is a world where social, sexual, political and
cultural mores are turned upside down and we are immediately plunged into this moral
morass.
If, however,
there is no justice; that would also be fitting, as inequality is one of the
major themes the play examines. In 1665 when the plague stalks the streets of London,
the wealthy couple William and Darcy Snelgrave (Andrew Eddey and Sarah Heywood)
are quarantined in their house for four weeks. On the last day of their
confinement, the house is broken into by Bunce (Lewis McDonald), a sailor, and
Morse (Cheski Walker), a strange adolescent who turns out to be the serving
girl of their neighbours. Once the guard, Kabe (George Mitton) detects their
presence, the house is sealed up for another 28 days, forcing the unlikely foursome
to live together in less than perfect harmony.
The
isolation is stifling and the silences are admirably awkward as the unwelcome house-guests
begin to learn about each other. The members of the confined quartet all give
solid performances as they tease out information and back-stories from their
characters. As in previous NUTS productions, the age of the available actors
limits the possible range of expression, but the actors playing the fifty-something
Snelgraves gave pretty fine performances considering. Darcy Snelgrave has been
physically, sexually and emotionally repressed for over thirty years, and
although Heywood plays this as more grumpy irritation than subdued longing, her
thawing is persuasive as she rediscovers the pleasure of touch and intimacy.
Her
husband is caught between trying to be the boss and wanting to explore the worlds
that Bunce has seen. Eddey portrays this dichotomy with sincerity and his
interrogation scenes are a masterpiece of cautious curiosity. McDonald,
meanwhile, imbues Bunce with authority and awareness, whether instructing
William and Darcy on physical intimacy or regaling the company with tales of
wanderlust. He adds just the right hint of intimidation when he dresses in
another man’s clothes and literally assumes the mantle of power.
As
Morse, Cheski Walker luxuriates in a childlike limpidity and her movements around
the stage are fluid and compelling. She might benefit from more variety of
tone, however, as the depiction of fey spirit child becomes a little tiresome,
and renders the screaming passion unconvincing. Similarly, Mitton could bring
more menace to the role of Kabe. His jovial cheek adds a light comic touch, but
a man who has been handed control over his past masters would surely take a more
spiteful advantage of his new-found promotion.
There
are some pacing issues in the play, which may be due to the co-direction of
Gowrie Varma and Ellie Greenwood. Perhaps having two directors rather than one
muddles the focus and prevents continuity. At times it feels as though everyone
thought someone else was providing the vision and it all gets a little lost. At
the interval, I heard several people wondering if it was actually the end, and
only the fact that they hadn’t seen the actors bow persuaded them to return to
the auditorium. Parts of the second half also flagged as though the actors were
unsure how to combine the separate movements into a cohesive symphony.
Naomi
Wallace took the title of her play from a John Donne poem in which a man exalts
in the thought of a flea mingling the blood of a pair of lovers. Of course the flea’s
ability to cross borders of sanguinity has darker consequences in terms of
disease. In the enforced isolation the characters are simultaneously saved and
damned by proximity and contact. The important moments all come through
physical transfer: transmitting gin from one mouth to another; the caress of a
body that has not been touched for 37 years; the placing of a finger into an
open wound; the angel’s breath of a child or death; the strangely seductive
handling of an orange; the thrilling fetish of toe-sucking.
This
plague affects all – the rich and poor alike – and has no respect of place,
persons nor time. Donne was a metaphysical poet; a term coined by Samuel
Johnson to describe a loose bunch of poets concerned with conceits and speculation
on themes such as politics and religion. The play’s treatment of class
disparity is apt in this context and the poetic surface belies a blunt sub-text
of growing concern over inequality as exemplified by recent riots and Occupy
movements.
Of
course, as every English school-child knows, the 1665 epidemic of the Bubonic
Plague in London was swept away by the Great Fire of 1666. The notion of purity
is strong on this stage; from the white outfits the characters wear, all the
better to show up the blood and the dirt, to the constant washing of the
floorboards with vinegar to prevent infection. The compulsory propinquity may
lead not only to epidemic outbreaks of disease, but social revolution. Wallace
seems to suggest that our contemporary plague is greed and individualism, and
only through sharing and collectivism will we recover healthy community.
