Melbourne playwright Daniel Keene was blessed to have the elite Sydney Theatre Company’s Actors Company performing Citizens and Soldiers, his two one act plays, under the umbrella title The Serpent’s Teeth, exploring the dark spectre of war on human lives.

The Serpent’s Teeth was a mixed night at the theatre. Citizens was a struggle. The play was set in front of the dividing wall of an unnamed country. Behind the wall the citizens have life easy. At the front, the citizens’ lives have been disrupted by war and life is a bitter struggle for survival.

Robert Cousins’ set for Citizens was claustrophobic and foreboding. A massive concrete wall swept across the Drama Theatre stage, with the citizens journeying across it. This production had more than a hint of Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children!

First-time director Pamela Rabe’s production lacked pace and spark. The saving graces were some strong performances by John Gaden, Peter Carroll, and Hayley McElhinney, an atmospheric score by Paul Charlier, and a great lighting design by Nick Schlieper.

Soldiers was more satisfying. It was great to see the whole expansive Drama Theatre stage used! Soldiers focused on the vast range of feelings experienced by a group of families waiting for the return, by military aircraft of their dead relatives, five soldiers killed in the latest Middle East war.

Soldiers featured some strong performances. Hayley McElhinney’s portrayal of a struggling working class woman struggling to cope with what has happened was touching. Amber McMahon delivered a memorable soliloquy to grief and loss.

The piece ended poignantly with Pamela Rabe, as one of the grieving relatives, taking the hand of the next generation’s Joshua Denyer as they made their way to the funeral service, and telling him, ‘let’s make a new start and leave the emptiness behind.’

Tim Maddock’s direction was strong, and in the production sphere, Robert Cousins open set, Nick Schlieper’s exquisite lighting design and Paul Charlier’s score worked well.