The Aliens

Though director Craig Baldwin references the “vanguard of Naturalism” (Chekhov, Strindberg, Ibsen) in his program notes, playwright Annie Baker seems to lean more toward the absurdists in the style and the characters she has created for this intensive view of life and relationships. There are echoes of both Becket and Pinter in the characters, the dialogue, the pauses … and the effect on the audience.

KJ and Jasper jump the fence to meet in the grubby backyard of a small town coffee shop in America. Life has been hard on them. KJ has a drinking problem and Jasper’s girlfriend has just left him. Their conversation is punctuated by the long, but comfortable, natural silences that infer understanding and acceptance. Both men are typical of the ‘ordinary people of poor America’ of whom their ‘hero’ the poet Charles Bukowski wrote. Jasper quotes him often. KJ carries one of his anthologies. The program is interspersed with Bukowski extracts from his poems …

“some people never go crazy. What trulyhorrible lives they must lead.”

Evan is a high school student newly employed at the coffee shop. He is nonplussed, surprised, when he comes out to dump the rubbish and finds Jasper and ‘KJ’. He knows they shouldn’t be there, but their influence on this shy youth will be something he’ll remember forever.

Ben Wood plays KJ with the same honesty with which Annie Baker writes. His KJ is a likeable, warm, easy-going bear of a man who has taken life’s knocks on the chin. He gets riled, but gets over fits of temper fairly quickly. Wood gives KJ a sense of introspective perceptiveness that shines through a crooked smile and intense, searching eyes.

Jeremy Waters depicts Jasper with similar intensity. His long silences perpetuate a tension that is established in the almost fierce expression in his eyes and the tight control of his body. Waters has created a character that is at one moment scary, at another needy, at yet another caring and understanding – in fact, a character that seems to be based very strongly upon the poet Bukowski himself.

James Bell returns to the Sydney stage as the teenager Evan. He is believable and charming in this difficult but empathetic role. His gangly stance, awkward responses and almost bashful smile bring the shy, inexperienced schoolboy to convincing life.

Obviously Craig Baldwin and his cast have delved deeply into these characters and found the objectives behind the words – and silences – that Baker has written for them. Baldwin’s direction is tight, pushing the audience into a world where people embody a different system of values yet still find special and meaningful connections.

Designer Hugh O’Connor has transformed the stage of the Old Fitzroy into a neglected space where a few weeds straggle up between cracks. There is the usual paraphernalia that might be found behind a shop – a dumpster for garbage, some empty milk crates, a couple of plastic chairs, an old table and a plant pot ashtray. The set is as realistic as the characters that use it.

Ben Brockman’s lighting is equally effective. Shadows play in tune with the changing mood of the dialogue, and scene changes are effected by the sparks and rasping sounds of an electric insect catcher. It’s an interesting innovation and one that works particularly well in the context of O’Connor’s set.

There is a real sense of empathy in this production. Baker’s understanding of the people about whom she is writing is picked up by the creative team, projected by the actors … and watched over by the ghost of Charles Bukowski and his words …

“sometimes it gets so bad

that anything else

say like

looking at a bird or an

overhead power line

seems as great as a Beethoven

symphony

then you forget it and you’re back

again”

Reviewer: Carol Wimmer

Photographer: Rupert Reid