Theatre Review
Eleanor Pearson 27 August 2018 Moody Highland Mystery Captivates!Take an isolated former hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands, a serial killer on the prowl, two people unhappily married to each other, and a charismatic up-and-coming actor…you have all the ingredients for a satisfying and entertaining play, featuring murder and mayhem.
James Cawood’s Death Knell is Hunters Hill Theatre’s third production of the season. Death Knell is named for a grandfather clock that tolls on the hour inside the old hunting lodge, spookily foreshadowing doom for at least one character! |
Death Knell |
Directed by Jennifer Willison, this psychological thriller is full of unexpected thumps, rings, and bumps in the night. The suspense caused the audience to jump at times, but there’s enough ham about it, and black humour aplenty, so you can be reassured this Hitchcock-flavoured murder mystery won’t morph into melodrama.
From the play’s outset, a mood is cast. It’s not just the “fire-lit” panelled walls of the lodge’s interior, complete with mounted deer head, and rifles. It’s not even the elaborate soundscape (by Casey Moon-Watton), with unmistakable noises such as the crunch of the gravel driveway, and boots scraping off snow outside the front door; and soft, but sinister music at times of peak suspense. It’s the carefully crafted chemistry between the two protagonists: Evelyn and Henry Roth.
If you could take the essence of an unhealthy relationship and bottle it, it might resemble Evelyn and Henry Roth’s marriage. Evelyn (Paula Searle) is a teary, but angry recovering alcoholic; Henry (Chris Clark) is a successful, but insecure playwright, who specialises in the thriller genre - and keeping his trophy wife on a tight leash! Drawn together by mutual dependency, they cling to, and also appear to despise, one another.
As these two unhappy souls bear winter approaching together in the isolated lodge, you would be not wrong for suspecting something sinister is afoot.
Henry Roth puts it bluntly to Evelyn: “I love you, but I can’t trust you.”
When Henry’s muse for his latest play turns up at the lodge for an audition, there has to be something more to it.
Henry’s muse is a personable young actor, Jack Willoughby, played with vigour by Ross Holohan.
From the play’s outset, a mood is cast. It’s not just the “fire-lit” panelled walls of the lodge’s interior, complete with mounted deer head, and rifles. It’s not even the elaborate soundscape (by Casey Moon-Watton), with unmistakable noises such as the crunch of the gravel driveway, and boots scraping off snow outside the front door; and soft, but sinister music at times of peak suspense. It’s the carefully crafted chemistry between the two protagonists: Evelyn and Henry Roth.
If you could take the essence of an unhealthy relationship and bottle it, it might resemble Evelyn and Henry Roth’s marriage. Evelyn (Paula Searle) is a teary, but angry recovering alcoholic; Henry (Chris Clark) is a successful, but insecure playwright, who specialises in the thriller genre - and keeping his trophy wife on a tight leash! Drawn together by mutual dependency, they cling to, and also appear to despise, one another.
As these two unhappy souls bear winter approaching together in the isolated lodge, you would be not wrong for suspecting something sinister is afoot.
Henry Roth puts it bluntly to Evelyn: “I love you, but I can’t trust you.”
When Henry’s muse for his latest play turns up at the lodge for an audition, there has to be something more to it.
Henry’s muse is a personable young actor, Jack Willoughby, played with vigour by Ross Holohan.
|
Jack Willoughby enters the lodge with the apprehension and enthusiasm of a young buck meeting his mentor for the first time, but by the end of the scene, his willingness to inhabit the thriller genre (complete with props), is unnerving. This tension is maintained to the end of play - murder is on the cards - and yes, there’s more than one twist, so stay alert.
However, one felt at the end perhaps the loose ends were a little too neatly tied up. As one character states: |
“Murder is easy – it’s getting away with it that’s more difficult.”
Watch for a refreshingly whimsical cameo at the end by (Professor of Paediatrics, AM.) Kim Oates in a small, but pivotal role, as Detective Chief Inspector Lazan.
Death Knell plays until September 2, 2018
Watch for a refreshingly whimsical cameo at the end by (Professor of Paediatrics, AM.) Kim Oates in a small, but pivotal role, as Detective Chief Inspector Lazan.
Death Knell plays until September 2, 2018
Hunters Hill Theatre
Season: 24 August - 2 September Address: 22 Alexandra Street, Hunters Hill, 2110 |
|