There’s a real fearlessness to Theatre on Chester’s latest offering. In the main, the stage is peopled with odious characters who espouse ideas that range from racist to a downright bigoted wrongness. And very easy to caricature but here, each of the unpleasant, self-centred hypocrites is fully formed and delivered with complete conviction. Unusual fare for a community theatre. A choice that respects their audience and the play.
David Williamson’s INFLUENCE centres around Ziggy Blasco, a radio host who has strong opinions … on anything that will up his ratings. He’s an equal opportunity dogmatist. At home, however, he is not king of the castle. His second wife Carmela is obsessed to regain her place as a prima ballerina after giving birth to their child and his daughter, Vivienne, from the previous marriage has just arrived to stay because she hates her mother.
Hatred runs deep in the Blascos as patriarch Marco, also comes to stay, shows early on. Just as self-deceived is Ziggy’s sister, Connie, who considers counselling and medication a cure for all ills. Add to this, a butler, Tony, who sees exactly what this family gets up to and a new housekeeper, Zehra who will observe the gradual disintegration of the household.
Ziggy is played by David Burke in a commanding performance that balances ample belief with an incomprehension that things don’t go his way by sheer force of nature. Burke has a great voice and uses it with unabashed manipulation in the radio scenes, his use of eyeline in those scenes equally as expressive. . He also has a very clever way of saying a word … like ‘aboriginal’ … and allowing just enough time for the audience to see what is coming and shake their heads in unison.
As Carmela, Tara Jay brings an artistic temperament to her vicious self-indulgence and a way of saying “It’s not that …..” which is truly grating and self-serving, in a performance that neatly avoids overt posturing. Leonie Bringolf‘s Connie has that brusque, authoritarianism of the older sister and the history, and the differences, between she and her brother is well explored. Bringolf also gives Connie the same care-less attitude as Ziggy when people disagree with her, except her self-belief gives her an imprimatur to meddle. Some nice comic moments from both these performers.
Harriet Bridges-Webb gets the age of her character, Vivienne, just right as she gives quite a few degrees of sulk and tantrum imminent until the character opens out. Bridges-Webb gives the later Vivienne an open physicality and her father’s arrogance. Her grandfather, a pivotal role, is played by Richard Lewis with an understanding of the damage that events in one’s youth can do to one’s age. His speech about ethnic truths is very moving. And the physical relationship between him and his son is especially character setting.
But the beating heart of the production is Tracey Okeby Lucan as Zehra who is warm and realistic and who brings a strong humanity as counterpoint to the individualism of the others. She is technically very proficient with the amount of business she has to do and has an openness of engagement early that has an empathetic audience firmly on her side . It’s a vital role in the text and Lucan shines brilliantly in a show with many fine performances. And her relationship with Rob White’s Tony is really lovely. White does such a good job in a low key but important role, especially when the grass worm turns.
The director Sher Kearney has balanced the relationships very well and her choices in making how these people feel about each other evident straight after their entrance is subtle work. That look between Connie and Carmela spoke a thousand words. Also very well handled is the dialectic. This is Williamson after all and the more complex ideas are not easy or easily accessible. Kearney’s sure hand in giving the audience the opportunity to consider the intelligent complexities of bigotry is especially apparent in the brother sister diatribe, done across the stage with vehemence that never gives in to stereotyping or hysteria. So much to think about from that scene and the space in which to give due consideration.
Audio wise the phone-in callers are very well recorded and cued and the choice to make Ziggy live gives an extra fillip to the reality of his radio studio. The set is, as always, extremely well-constructed and designed. It is that solidity, that attention to detail that is the hallmark of this particular theatre company. That kind of community effort shines through especially when the episodic nature of the last few scenes puts a well-rehearsed cast and crew on display.
INFLUENCE is thought provoking theatre which is created with realism and considerable skill to bring the themes home, making the odiousness enlightening.
INFLUENCE from Theatre on Chester [Facebook] plays until August 11th.
