Midnight Carousel

The story’s ostensible framing device is an interview in which uncertain but forceful journalist Amy (Isabelle Duggan) – who has problems of her own - interviews now Nobel Prize winning astronomer Ron.  He’s come through.  He’s a success, but he’s humble, self-deprecating, insisting that he owes everything - and especially his success - to Michelle…  And yet as he tells his story – that is, as he remembers it – and memory is another subject here – the story is one of struggle, pain, resentment and loss…

But this story isn’t told to us as a straight Q&A – with a series of flashbacks.  Yes, there is evocative and allusive dialogue, but it is constantly interrupted by the same speaker - or another speaker - with comment or narration that breaks flow, throwing us out of simple empathy for the characters.  (All the dialogue and narration – every word - are both spoken and appear as text on a high mounted screen – which in itself is often confusing: where do we look; do we listen or read?)  But this is a play for one actor and (as it’s turned out) eight actor/dancers.  The story, the narration, the emotions are represented too by expressive dance – movingly or disturbingly performed by this highly talented, disciplined cast, choreographed (so I’m told) by multi-talented director, Belle Hansen. The music – sometimes so subtle as to be unnoticed and at other times heightening emotion dramatically - is by the excellent Jack Burmeister.  And beyond, dominating, awesome and majestic, a huge screen shows us each of the planets, including our Earth and the Sun and the Moon, reminding us by contrast of the actual insignificance of our squabbles and struggles…

If all this seems overwhelming, it is in fact, often is.  Playwright Nick Jay has a teeming, frenetic imagination and marvellous verbal facility – and insight into those squabbles and struggles.  But for me, that imagination might be too teeming.  Rich and brilliant as it is, his play seems – feels – overloaded, just too much, unfocussed, and we struggle to draw the threads together as we are buffeted by his layers of allusion and meaning.

Was Belle Hansen dramaturg as well as director?  Some judicious pruning might have helped, might have clarified Jay’s intentions - that is by lessening distractions.  In short, less might be more.  Even so, Hansen has made a marvellous spectacle of this difficult, congested work.  It moves.  The energy does not slacken.  We might be occasionally puzzled, but we are never bored.  Beyond the excesses, we get what Nick Jay wants to tell us and the limber, hugely attractive and expressive cast delivers it with nuance and force.  He is clearly an immensely talented writer – but he might need to decide whether he is novelist or a dramatist.

This is, in a sense, an unfair review.  On opening night, three cast members had gone down with COVID and the day had been spent scrambling to rewrite and reapportion lines and characters.  Three of the performers were ‘on book’ - one most crucially Terry Hansen who stepped in very, very late to play Ron, the lead character.  (the assigned player is Alec Gilbert.)  Terry Hansen did a superb job, giving every bit of emotion he could to a still unfamiliar text, but inevitably hampered by the weighty folder he had to carry throughout and keep his eyes down so as not to lose his place.  All due respect to him – but I think all of us wanted to see and hear ‘Ron’ speak to us direct, tease out Jay’s words, explain Ron’s passion, romance and loss.

Michael Brindley

Photographer Steven Mitchell Wright