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By Richard
Black "They've been so long on Lonely Street/They never, never will go back." This play invites us to watch those that walk Lonely Street and rent a room at the Heartbreak Hotel. People at the edge of society have often been the subject of fascination but rarely are we asked such disturbing questions about them as here. Is there any hope for these lonely characters? The audience of Terminus is left alone with the thought. Questions are asked, comfort is illusory. It seems to begin as a detective story with the murder of a boy, the grief of his sister and the investigation of two cops - but the play itself is the mystery and we are the detectives. The solution is difficult to reach however, elusive in the twisting, quirky plot that threatens to disorientate us completely. But there are clues to the puzzle tropes that we can cling to and lead us through our own investigation. The image of birds, for instance, and themes of loneliness such as the poignant emergence of the song Heartbreak Hotel keep tantalising us. Instrumental in ensuring the attention of the audience is Stephen Hawker's lighting, James Browne's set and Max Lyandvert's sound. Together they create a threatening landscape that enforces the loneliness of the characters no mean feat within the confines of the Darlo Theatre's performance space while ensuring the attention of the audience. It nicely accommodates the quick changes in scene and the juxtaposition of the real and unreal that is distinctive about the play. It suits the play's capacity to be familiar such as in the moments where passengers on the last night train sit and contemplate themselves in the window reflections while full of mysterious menace. In this context Berynn Schwerdt is compelling as the enigmatic John, a strange amoral presence, angel and demon, lover and murderer. This disturbing ambivalence, heightened as John falls into a relationship with Joanna, the sister of the murdered boy gives this play its lingering power. We are constantly being asked questions, our expectations confounded. The murdered, for instance, reappear as birds. Is this their only chance for flight and freedom? The play's perspective throughout seems detached, a thoughtful objectivity without cynicism. The play will satisfy those who seek to be provoked rather than placated with neat solutions. For others, who are already on the fringes of society, it will offer little solace. The Good: A performance that truly engages with the audience. The Bad: Some may find only a sense of hopelessness. The Vibe: Ironically, there is no Terminus, this experience perpetuates beyond the theatre.
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By Bryce Hallett At the crux of Daniel Keene's inquiring and ambitious play Terminus are the questions how well do we truly know one another and how selfless and trusting are we? Structured in 23 short scenes or fragments, Terminus is a mix of familiar slice-of-life scenes and poetic moments that defy expectation and trail off into the dark, violent and unsettling. The opening sequence, Last Train Home, is set on a near-empty train as a man called John (Berynn Schwerdt) attempts to strike up a conversation with a boy (Ben Geurens) carrying a shoebox containing a bird. He wants to be left alone but the babbling sermoniser John has other ideas. What begins on a mundane note turns swiftly into something brutal and cold - a pattern repeated in Terminus as Keene attempts to explore the nature of openness and distrust, love and hate, freedom and confinement, instinct and law. The writing is crammed with literary references, not least Shakespeare, Camus and Beckett, and darts off on so many incomplete tangents as never to attain the dramatic promise suggested by the opening. There's no shortage of enigma and suffering. Director Joseph Uchitel's production is attentively realised and greatly assisted by Max Lyandvert's excellent sound design, James Browne's set and costumes, and Stephen Hawker's lighting. The ensemble is committed and strong. "What I cause is all that I am and I cannot know any of it," says the doomed murderer John - not so much a rounded character as a symbolic figure who demands trust and knowledge from his potential prey. But he's hard to decipher and everything in Terminus is transitory. The boy's sister Anne is played by Tamara Cook with assertiveness and heart but Schwerdt doesn't make John as charismatic as he should be. The play isn't all dark and tense, and Laurence Coy contributes a terrific cameo as a raging police sergeant who's never got ahead in life while Tom O'Sullivan, as his sober offsider, is an ideal foil. Tanya Goldberg impresses as the prostitute who's happy to bare anything other than her soul while Mark Constable is very good as the homeless man offering his vision of paradise from the margins. There's a lot to like about Terminus but it lacks the unifying force and power to make us care about its fallen, unfathomable, suffering creatures. |
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Colin Rose Poet, philosopher or madman - who is John (Berynn Schwerdt)? Some clues: he has a fetish for night trains, frequents cheap hotels and whorehouses, sucks like a vampire on other people's pain and administers a terrrifying "cure" for their lonliness. Transcendence, a warm body to lie next to, or a glimpse beyond the curtain of death - what is John looking for? Another clue: he's equally confident quoting Shakespeare, the Bible and the lyrics to Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel. OK, perhaps I'd better stop there before someone calls me out for being a pseud. But playwright Daniel Keene, like the character of John, goes all the way, freely mixing poetic and philisophioc turns of phrase with (grim) sex and (even grimmer) vioence in a way that pretty much begs to be labelled pretentious. But to do so would be a shame, because Keene, who has the most European sensibility of any Australian playwright, has peopled his no-respite, black-on-black drama with 12 characters (the number of the apostles - surely not a coincidence) drawn from the outer margins of society. These people, a prostitute, a violent cop, a derelict who comes on like a prophet, have lives, too, even if most of us choose to shun them. In Terminus, they are all defined by a bruised and aching lonliness. So, there's not much here that's comforting, but then why should there be? Director Joseph Uchitel's production has a seedy eroticism that riffs on film noir before eventually succumbing to the play's self-conscious mysteriousness and numbing misery. |
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