Kate’s Score:2.5 twilight zones
A child is stolen. A child is found. Is it the same child? One parent believes the child is. The other has doubts. It is a primal fear played out in folklore and is the unsettling premise of many a story – such as Setterfield’s Once Upon a River and John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos. A fear which has featured episodically in every sci-fi, fantasy and horror television series. The outcome is never happy.
And it is the fear which underpins the second run of Hilary Bell’s Splinter. A man and a woman are re-united with their missing daughter. To find peace and a time to bond, they take her to an isolated beach house, where shadows and the outside menace the three of them. But increasingly it seems that the danger is less “out there”, and more inside.
Given that this is not a new psychological thriller, it needs something fresh in its re-purposing. And this is the flaw. Bell’s script offers nothing particularly new and is predictable in its journey – we know that the doubts of one parent will grow and the end will be unpleasant. The elements are there; the reforming of the family unit, the “absent” child, the isolation and ultimate splintering and fracturing of the individuals. Yet it shoots wide of the mark, being somewhat contrived and recycled.
Benjamin Brockman brings his genius to the production, infusing terror and disorientation with a design which inventively makes the best of the Stables limited stage area. Mic Gruchy’s (Video) shadows flicker and play outside and inside and Alyx Dennison’s sound work ups the ante in the menacing stakes. Lucy Bell and Simon Gleeson bring their expertise to the game but their everywoman / everyman status seemed to leave them struggling with characterisation as did their acting with the invisible Laura.
Human stories become interesting when something inhuman is revealed. The revelation is everything.
Kate Stratford – Theatre Now
6 Sep – 12 Oct 2019
Venue: SBW Stables Theatre
Theatre Company: Hilary Bell
Duration: N/A
Ticket Prices:
Full $62
Concession/Preview/Group 8+ $52
Under 35 $38
Monday Rush $20
plus booking fee
Preview 6 – 10 September
Opening Nights 11 & 12 September
Performance Times
Monday – Friday 7pm
Saturday 2pm & 7pm
Wednesday 9 October 2pm & 7pm
Meet the Artists
Tuesday 17 September
Captioned Performance
Tuesday 8 October
By Hilary Bell
Tales of missing children have always held a terrible fascination.
Celtic folklore chilled the bones of many a superstitious new mother with stories of babies stolen from their beds by envious fairies, changelings left in their place. These days, when a child disappears the media grabs us by the throat and won’t let us go. These disappearances haunt us for days, weeks, years.
In the dark of a Sydney winter, Hilary Bell’s disquieting and downright chilling thriller Splinter channels tabloid news and primal fears alike.
A couple are reunited with their missing daughter. Fierce love has sustained them through her unbearable absence. But now she’s home…something just isn’t right. How do they stop their imaginations running wild? Maybe if they return to the beach house where they spent their happiest summers, they’ll return to their old selves.
Revisiting the sinister territories of Wolf Lullaby, Splinter reunites Bell’s supreme atmospherics with another powerhouse performance from sister, Lucy (Speaking in Tongues, Dreams in White) as a mother forced to confront the unthinkable. Directed by Lee Lewis and starring Lucy Bell and Simon Gleeson, this claustrophobic chamber piece questions how well we know our families. Up close and intimate in the Stables, there’s nowhere to hide.
Director Lee Lewis
Composer/Sound Designer Alyx Dennison
Video Designer Mic Gruchy
Lighting Designer Benjamin Brockman
Designer Tobhiyah Stone Feller
Stage Manager Rebecca Poulter
With Lucy Bell, Simon Gleeson
Suitable for: Ages 4+ and their families
