Savages

Savages is about four blokes on a cruise trying unsuccessfully to leave behind the baggage of their disappointed lives and loves.  

Written by a woman, Patricia Cornelius, directed by a Brit, Tim Roseman, it’s a portrait finally of Australian misogyny – of four men, manic and fearful, defensive and two-faced to each other, but driven by their camaraderie and desperate escapism towards a violent assertion of their sexual needs.  Such men crossed the path of Dianne Brimble who was killed on that P&O cruise back in 2002.

In Savages they speak and move as one across Jeremy Allen’s effective abstraction of a ship’s deck.  Together, they finish each other’s sentences in rhyming couplets and constantly repeat chants of matey affirmations. 

Backed by Julia Cotton’s pacey stage movement, the result is a theatrical, rhythmic build in tension and threat.   Nate Edmondson’s rumbling sounds add to the unease, as the men shift from sentimental, even amusing fantasies about their mums and the best of womanhood, to angry hatred and entitlement.

This sort of vernacular poetry was startlingly used by Stephen Berkoff to bring alive his dispossessed eastenders of London.

Amongst the bravado, Rabbit (Josef Ber), Craze (Yure Covich), George (Troy Harrison) and Runt (Thomas Campbell) each have room to tell their story, and hint at their self-deceptions.   Some are more believable than others; but many subtleties, and certainly our empathies, are lost in the same relentless rhythm driving the ensemble. 

We care little for these savages, indeed they are dull company, but this sophisticated production successfully makes uncomfortable drama from the maudlin horrors of the pack.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Helen White.