Lennox Theatre, October 21<\/strong>
Until November 3<\/strong>
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
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Felicity Castagna\u2019s racy novel about two teenaged girls behaving badly has the makings of a movie, and perhaps a play \u2013 but this was not quite it. In adapting the book for the stage, Priscilla Jackman has lost some of the fizz and lightness of tone, and as director she hasn\u2019t fully extracted the requisite performances from her two leads: Ziggy Resnick as Rosa, the narrator, and Nikita Waldron as Asheeka.<\/p>\n
Rosa and Asheeka attend a Parramatta girls\u2019 school, where the main extracurricular activities are cruising in the back of loud, lowered cars and eating McDonald\u2019s. You can understand why they suspect life contains more options. Having been treated like dirt once too often by her boyfriend, Asheeka drives off in his iridescent blue Falcon with a wide-eyed Rosa beside her. After the spontaneous theft, their only option is to keep driving.<\/p>\n
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The design team may have overcomplicated the wizardry and underestimated their audience.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Phil Erbacher<\/cite><\/p>\n It\u2019s a road movie in the guise of a novel and then dramatised (for National Theatre of Parramatta). The last part was a big ask, with the solution calling for greater or lesser amounts of either technological and theatrical wizardry or audience imagination. In the event, Jackman and her design team may have overcomplicated the wizardry and underestimated their audience.<\/p>\n Opening night glitches with gauzy screens that track across stage were entirely forgivable, but perhaps point to the solutions having been overthought. The resultant delays must have been challenging for the cast, but the performances and characterisations don\u2019t consistently have the ring of truth, anyway. Lines that work in Castagna\u2019s pages sound more author-driven than character-driven when spoken, such as girls \u201cdisappearing into their own anger\u201d and \u201clearning to walk in my own body\u201d.<\/p>\n Much, however, is commendable about both the writing and the production, notably the complexity of the love\/hate relationship between Rosa and Asheeka. This begins with the latter making the former visible in a world that has ignored her, and progresses to their being there for each other, being rivals, and trying to reconcile their mutual betrayals.<\/p>\n Jackman has Suz Mawer, Ella Prince and Alex Stamell sharing some 20 other roles, and performing with an emphasis on physicality and such devices as unison line delivery. There\u2019s an intensity in this ensemble work that may contain the less literal key to fully unlocking the book as a play.<\/p>\n The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. <\/i><\/b>Get it delivered every Friday<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nMost Viewed in Culture<\/h2>\n