Lamb

Annie (Brigid Gallacher) surprises her brother, Patrick (Darcy Kent), by arriving back at the sheep farm for the funeral of their mother, whom their brain-injured older sister, Kathleen (Emily Goddard), doesn’t quite realise won’t be returning from the grave.  Patrick’s inexplicable resentment at Annie’s departure five years earlier, when their mother was still hale, and Patrick’s plan to sell the farm though Annie claims an attachment to it undermine their harmony, a harmony that the play depicts interestingly in their singing together.

In order to minimise confusion, it’s as well to know, going in to the production, that the production flouts a couple of stage conventions.  First, between scenes, even scenes occurring in different locations, there are not always signals such as dimmed lights.  This would matter less in a play in which each scene represents action occurring after the scene before, but in this play most scenes represent action preceding that of the scene that has just played out.  What makes this potentially more confusing is that the actors playing Annie and Patrick also play their parents (Annie even wearing the same dress), Mary and Frank.  These odd choices are easy enough to overcome if you know what you’re in for; otherwise, you may wonder at the oddity of some of the relationships.

The character of Patrick came across as particularly natural, taking good advantage of the script’s dialogue, almost too naturalistic in its unfinished sentences and unvoiced messages.  But a surprise highlight of the production was the performance by Darcy Kent and, intermittently, Brigid Gallacher, of the songs specially penned by Hunters & Collectors’ Mark Seymour.  This enjoyable listening experience helped advance the plot at several points.

Lamb makes for an interesting evening: without being too dark, it dips into the relationship difficulties that historical silence, habitual assumptions, and memory drift may give rise to, and through natural responses brings resolution of a sort to a complex family history.

John P. Harvey

Image: [L–R] Emily Goddard, Darcy Kent, and Brigid Gallacher, the cast of Lamb.  Photographer: Robert Blackburn.