RANDOM : A VISCERAL EXPERIENCE

“Random can happen to anyone. Why did it happen to him?”

This is a tough night in the theatre. The subject matter is grim. A family lose their son who is killed in a random act of violence. And it’s challenging. The playwright has written her play as a one woman show. The actress performs all of the characters, switching between them during the performance.

Playwright debbie tucker green takes us into a day in the life of a family, a coloured family in London but really, in the end, ultimately,  it could be any family in any part of the world, that ‘random’ happens to.

We see a family starting an ordinary day. The mother making breakfast. The father having a bit of a lie in. The daughter having a bit of a battle with the alarm clock. The son getting ready for school.

Everybody makes their deadline. The son makes it to school. The daughter makes it to her mundane office job. She is going to send a message to her partner who isn’t giving enough attention to her.

We get to lunch time. Just an ordinary day. Then out of nowhere the daughter receives a phone call. She is told she has to come home now. She is a bit surprised by the demand but doesn’t give it much thought. She says goodbye to her work colleagues.

She comes home to find her parents talking with two police officers who are drinking tea. It is then she finds out the terrible news that her younger brother, who she is used to criticising, isn’t coming home.

Leticia Caceres production is a strong one. The play runs just under an hour. Actress Zahra Newman impressively switches between the characters as we get to find out what is going on for each of them. Newman connected well with the audience in the intimate space of the downstairs theatre.

It’s the telling of this story viscerally, from the inside, that gives it its rawness and power.  It’s in the minutiae of the day, of the experience, that the play has its telling power. Green’s writing is poetic, all the observations are authentic.

When the mother finds out that her son has passed away, she says to the police “I want my daughter here now!”.

The family have this belief ‘never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you’.

The daughter going to her brothers bedroom just to be in that space and to smell his scent, which she used to tease him about. ‘I don’t want to lose that smell’.

The mother noticing the dark shoes of the police officer on her clean floor.

The daughter looking out the window in the car on the way home from the morgue “passing the every day and the people don’t know what I’m going through”.

Jacob Nash’s with associate Matilda Woodroofe’s set and costume designs were sparse and to the point, The Sweats with associate Jessica Dunn put together an edgy soundscape, and Rachel Burke’s lighting design was very effective in capturing the different moods.

Recommended, debbie turner green’s RANDOM is playing downstairs at Belvoir Street until 11 November.

www.belvoir.com.au

Featured image- Zahra Newman in debbie turner green’s RANDOM. Pic Daniel Boud.