Paradise Lost
Just two young women on a bare, dimly lit stage, and two wooden benches. The women start to speak - not dialogue, but a poem, a lengthy encomium to the river, or rather 'the River', capital R, for the river in Eden is the quintessential river, it stands for all rivers, bringing life-sustaining water, and death. The river runs like a leitmotif through the play, just as the unnamed waterway snakes its way, not only through the Australian landscape, but the landscape of the hearts and minds of our two protagonists - Kit & Dan.
In Kate Gaul's beautiful tone poem of a play, the river is more than a place on a map, it is a character, shaping the destinies of all that live on it, but especially Kit and Dan. They are our guides to the life of the river and the community it shapes - an unsettling world of moral decay, family dysfunction, violence and death.
A World in Snapshots
Karrine Kanaan & Lara Lightfoot perform all the roles of the inhabitants of this damaged community - parents, teachers, shop keepers, and the local gang, who are presented in brief glimpses, as snapshots of lives, tumbling out in quick succession, making it hard, sometimes, to follow who is who, but I suspect that may be the point. We are not being offered carefully delineated individuals, but the girls' impressions, in moments, that describe a world composed of many little details - like a painting by Hieronymous Bosch.
The only thing that manages to rise above the mist of despair and decay is the friendship between Kit and Dan, which quietly evolves into something more than friendship.
Paradise Regained
Kanaan & Lightfoot as Kit & Dan give performances that are emotionally nuanced and precise, bursting with energy as they ricochet from character to character, moment to moment. The passion and optimism of youth, as well as the frustration and resentment at the prospect of seeing that passion turn rancid in their backwater country town is movingly captured.
Music To My Ears
And the language! The language of Eden is unlike any other modern play; more like epic poetry. It is lyrical - prose poetry that sustains the play from beginning to end. It is sinuous and lush, flowing through the narrative like the river through the landscape. But it is not the language alone that distinguishes Eden and marks it as something unique. Nate Edmondson's beautiful sound design acts as a counterpoint to the language. Gaul and Edmondson treat sound here naturalistically, rather than theatrically. It is ever present, as it is in life, in nature, operating as a constant backdrop, establishing atmosphere, place, tone - combining the sounds of the bush and those of the soul. Eden is an experience not to be missed. 4.5 stars
Eden is performing at the Substation, Qtopia at Taylor Square 7-18 April, 7.30pm