Love From a Stranger

First time director Tui Clark and her cast have handled Christie’s text with ease, adapting it to suit a modern stylised representation, set in 1920s London. 

Clark examines the domestic abuse between Bruce Lovell (Sam Walter) and his new bride Cecily (Emilia Kriketos) as he sweeps her off her feet in a whirlwind romance and whisks her off to the country. Meanwhile, the audience pat themselves on the back for working out who the killer so obviously is … but is that a red herring? Has everyone remembered this is an Agatha Christie offering? 

There are so many well-developed characters it is hard to know where to begin. Hats off to Walter straight up, who joined the cast 2 weeks ago. He gives a wonderfully nuanced performance. Given his recent introduction to the character, Walter will be superbly wicked by the end of the run. The cast surround the new addition to the family flawlessly which can be no easy task given the months of blocking that Walter had to quickly slot into. At present he carries his script in a handful of scenes but had there not been an announcement pre-show I feel that the audience would have thought it no more than a well-worn newspaper, a prop barely noticeable. 

Kriketos’ Cecily is well played as the innocent girl bored with her life and absent fiancé. This girl wants adventure and finds herself suddenly capable of having it after she wins a small fortune in the sweepstake. Her cavalier performance in act one subsides into a perplexed complacent wife and eventually a woman fighting for her life depending on all her mental faculties to outwit the serial killer. A deliberate choice from Clark and designer Tom Bannerman is a minimalistic set with a skeletal structure in the midst of the stage. It is designed to feel like the walls closing in on its prey. Cecily has been isolated from her friends and family. She is caught in his web. We know he is circling her, and the other characters shrink into the background as we watch them dance alone. The minimalist choices of the set amplify the feeling.

Supporting characters we meet along the way round out a top notch cast, with Kimberlea Smith as Mavis and Charlotte Launay as Aunt Lou both vying for the best one liners. The ladies are skilled in delivery and the audiences lap up the comedy knowing it won’t last. 

Matthew Doherty as dependable fiancé Nigel is steadfast and kind with a twinkle in his eye. Doherty makes us want him to emerge the victor and dash in to save the day but in true Agatha Christie style he is just out of arm's reach as he steps aside. The good guy is a little too dull in Cecily’s eyes. 

Rod Stewart as Hodgson and Claire Ji Eun Yi as Ethel round out the cast, both equally memorable. Some of Ethel’s facial work is priceless, while gardener Hodgson is affable, dependable and kind hearted. Can either save the day? 

I must note the costume department. Susan Carveth has transported us back in time with some wonderful dresses, hats and gloves while Michael Schell has done a wonderful job designing ominous light and sound to accompany the action onstage. 

This is as much an ode to a Sydney treasure and all who have played upon her stage as a review. For how do you separate the two when this is likely the final curtain call for she who stands at 420 Kent St? The grand lady who has seen players entertaining Sydney audiences during her 69 years. She will unlikely see her 70th anniversary with the group who have called her home, instead making her final bow taking a slice of Sydney’s cultural history with her to make way for the developers reducing her to rubble on the ground where she has stood since 1868. 

What a bittersweet honour for the whole team of Love from a Stranger if they are indeed the finale. What a wonderfully crafted show capable of taking the task. Clark has done herself and the Genesian Theatre proud. It is good sinister fun! 

Nicole Smith 

Photographer: Craig O'Regan