Silenced

More a ‘let’s-see-what-we’ve-got-here’ than a play, Silenced gets a trial run under the flight path of landing planes in Marrickville, Sydney. The all-female cast of six copes well with the frequent jet noises, as they come to grips with the journey each has to take: being forcibly silenced by a male partner or family member.

Excellently set in an Aussie back garden, a safe place to chat about their issues, this group of friends meet and discuss individual problems with their men and with society at large. Under the direction of Carly Fisher, the presentation varies between exposition, poetry and gritty realism. There’s no doubt about which works best: theatrical grit every day.

The cast are from many points of the globe. Chanika Desilva, born in Sri Lanka, brings a fierce determination to the garden-stage, and we can see why she is so certain that silence is not the right medicine. Mariama Whitton, an Ethiopian, is similarly sure, bringing an extra layer to silenced Australian womankind.

Nola Bartolo, of Lebanese descent, adds grit to the group, which also includes Deborah Faye Lee, Sonya Kerr and playwright Linda Nicholls-Gidley, a leading voice/accent/dialect coach who gathered this diverse and talented group together.

Director Fisher directs a splendid team, with Capri Harris on Lights and Charlotte Leamon on Sound. The setting, with pegged out washing, all-white garden seats and plenty of coloured drinks containers, is exactly right.

They’re not there yet, but they are definitely onto something. Perhaps they should rely more heavily on the first-hand staging of lived experiences. The audience gave full attention to Desilva’s account of her life and the way she attacked the silences that beset her as an actress. No! she said, and turned her back firmly on the enemy.

Frank Hatherley