Writer, director Paul Gilchrist has achieved a lot with his production of CHRISTINA IN THE CUPBOARD, now showing at the TAP Gallery in Darlinghurst.
Described in the program notes as “an experiment in comic magic realism”, the play is primarily effective due to the richness of its dialogue and powerhouse performances by a mainly young and exuberant cast.
Christina (Sylvia Keays) has retreated from the world, locking herself in a cupboard in her bedroom and apparently “withdrawing” from life, in part to do battle with her own “Leviathan”, a shadowy monster of the mind.
This has a profound effect on her family and friends who are all attempting to process the supposed abnormality of her actions, what role they played in her decision and what can and should be done to get her to come back to reality. They then embark on a number of strategies to coax her out of her situation.
Whilst those closest to her seem overly concerned about her well being, Christina herself seems strangely inured to their concerns, seeing nothing overly wrong with her desire to shut herself off, for a time, to disengage as a way of re-engaging with the world. As she says, “there are 7 billion of us out there” and her situation is undoubtedly being repeated elsewhere in the world somewhere.
This was this reviewer’s first trip to the TAP Gallery theatre and its surroundings left me not expecting very much, if the truth be told. Yet having seen plenty of Sydney theatre over the years full of lavish sets and big-name thespians, this show turned out to be a surprise joy on a number of levels and the sparseness of the set meant that all that was left were the words and those delivering them, and neither disappointed.
Keays shines in the lead role, where she is thankfully not confined to a cupboard but is free to roam the stage expressing the complexity of a character much wiser and worldly than her age would suggest.
She is constantly making comparisons with Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed taking the necessary time out to “find” themselves, and as absurd as these comparisons initially seem, they certainly provide the fodder for some of the play’s more amusing exchanges.
Alice Keohavong delivers a passionate performance as little sister Anna, beset with her own issues but needing her sister to be there for her.
Sonya Kerr and Sinead Curry are particularly memorable and provide much of the comic relief as Christina’s “best” friends Erica and Belinda, whose puerile competitive streak and obsession with social media and their number of Facebook “friends” offer a striking metaphor for the banality of the so-called real world, the one in which Christina is trying to escape from.
Helen Tonkin (Gwen) and Peter McAllum (Robert) put in first-rate performances as exasperated parents trying to process the notion that their daughter is in some way abnormal and that they had done something wrong to bring about this situation.
The parental perspective also gives the production a powerful counterpoint to the youthful perspective of the rest of the characters, and they are not afraid to ask some of the tougher questions, both of themselves and the others: are we any wiser just because we’re older? Is parenthood something people enter into out of a sense of obligation, because they are taught that it is the right thing to do, because it satisfies a primordial urge? Do mothers by definition love their children more than their children love them?
McAllum also provides some of the most memorable comedic moments, replying to Christina’s references to God with a very loud “Christ”.
Stephen Wilkinson as Christina’s nervous ex boyfriend Gabriel and Kelly Robinson as the somewhat enigmatic Lucinda are also highly believable.
Aside from the acting, what really makes this production work is the way in which Gilchrist’s dialogue has successfully captured so many aspects of life in a 90-minute timeslot: the struggle for acceptance, what constitutes normality, the need to conform to feel accepted, the struggle against loneliness, what is responsibility and what are the consequences of shirking that responsibility, all of which are explored through a myriad of characters within the confines of one small stage.
The theme of normality is one that underpins the play from the get go and what is particularly interesting is how some of Christina’s soliloquising constitutes some of the most level-headed thinking in the play.
CHRISTINA IN THE CUPBOARD is a must for serious theatregoers with a sterling cast, some of which may well be household names in the not-too-distant future. As an audience member, I entered a little theatrical cupboard in a gallery basement, and left with a feeling of being part of the grand magic of the theatre as an art form and with the philosophical duty of inquiring about, and answering the questions, of what it means to be human.
Subtlenuance Theatre Company’s production of Paul Gilchrist’s CHRISTINA IN THE CUPBOARD opened at the Tap Gallery on Wednesday November 6 and runs until Sunday November 17, 2013.