Charming, wistful and whimsical.
Kate Stratford
4.5 Stars
Venue: KXT Theatre Broadway
Sydney
Dates: Until 26th September
If no-one can see your light, do you become invisible?
And conversely, when someone does see your light, does it illuminate everyone and everything around you?
Secret House brings another offering from the quirky pen of Alan Harris, whose work tends to play at the intersection of the supernatural and the natural. How My Light is Spent occupies this space with charm and grace, due in part to the musicality of the Welsh accent. And whilst the industrial Welsh town of Newport may seem a somewhat phlegmatic setting, its roots in Celtic history lend a dusting of magic possibilities. The form of the play has a sense of a novella – three narrators tell us what our central characters are feeling and thinking and doing. In the world of theatre, where the cardinal rule is ‘show not tell”; this rebellion of form is so adept that we are charmed by it. The narrators – Kira McLennan, Renee Billing and Pita Lolohea, also slip seamlessly into other roles; peopling the tiny world of the two central characters Jimmy (James Smithers) and Kitty (Jane Angharad) with memorable presence.
And there, at the centre of this story are two ordinary people seeking connection. Smithers and Angharad deliver with care, compassion and gentle humour portraits of the sort of people the world happily forgets or ignores. There is nothing glamorous about Jimmy and Kitty, two souls just wanting to be seen and survive. One is a habitually unemployed and the other is a phone-sex worker. Their ordinariness is memorable. Their infinite yearning for recognition is reflected in the design. Each end of the KXT traverse is lined with mirrors (Smithers again in one of his multi-faceted roles) and Director Braidon Toko has all actors often playing into the mirrors rather than each other. Light boxes on the floor move and shift the light around the actors, underpinning the central concept of the play. Toko has wisely opted for a gentle approach to the material – there is no sense of a vision being imposed but rather one being explored.
It is a very short play but delicate and intriguing – a sort of modern day fairy tale for grown-ups.
Jane Angharad and James Smithers are Secret House. They continue to unearth wonderful contemporary work and offer it up for our pleasure. Plays which seem to slip the notice of other companies. KXT’s Suzanne Millar’s claim that they are the leading couple in independent theatre in this city is well founded.
Photos by Robert Catto
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
