★★★☆
The Events is an Australian incarnation of David Greig’s award-winning play that opened at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013.
Propelled by the acts of the lone Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik in 2011, Greig references elements of his story: the shootings, his personal manifesto, his racist anti-Muslim rantings and references to Viking berserkers.
Catherine McClements (The Secret Life Of Us) makes her return to the Sydney stage as the protagonist Claire, a liberal-minded minister and choir leader whose local hall is stormed by a gunman. As the play unfolds, Claire interacts with a character known to the audience only as The Boy, played by Johnny Carr. Carr deftly switches between different characters, playing a journalist, a right-wing politico, The Boy’s father, someone he knew from school, a psychiatrist, and finally The Boy himself. As The Boy, he admits to Claire that by the end of the shootings in question, he started to feel self-conscious and “a bit silly”, and just wanted it to be over. As Carr twists and turns through these different characters, the audience slowly realises just how embedded The Boy has become in Claire’s psyche.
Greig’s text confronts head-on the aftermath of violent acts by young disenfranchised men. The result is a claustrophobic 70 minutes in which every second counts. And there isn’t much in the way of answers, despite Claire’s attempts to understand The Boy. Is he evil? Is he mad? He must be either mad or evil, mustn’t he? She comes up short, sending herself mad in the process.
Claire is a jarring character and her destructive quest for answers is uncomfortable to watch. She’s annoying, demanding and becomes something of a villain herself at times. But she’s also representative of all of us, as she desperately grasps for answers.
The Events is smart and charming in many ways, but over the course of the play certain bigoted comments on race and ethnicity start to pile up and go unchallenged: not because the playwright is lazy or didn’t notice, but rather because he assumes too much of his audience. Perhaps these views aren’t countered in the play because Claire never succeeds in countering what The Boy has to say, because she wants to reason with him, and he is unreasonable and unknowable. Perhaps the visual marker of the choir on stage – a wonderful mix of age, gender and ethnicity – is intended to be enough of a retort to the racist rhetoric.
Photo: Brett Boardman
The Eventsis playing at Belvoir St Theatre until Sunday June 12.
