Old Fitz Theatre, July 12
6.5/10
Like a single parent and a teenager sharing a cupboard-sized flat, this is two clashing plays trying to inhabit the same stage. British playwright Martin Crimp’s wrote it following the 1986 unsolved disappearance of young London estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, presumed murdered. But he frames the play as a satire of humans behaving badly in a real estate market as bloated as Sydney’s. At its best it’s very funny, with the satire gouging the hypocrisy of people pretending to be honourable while driven by the inevitable greed when houses fetch obscene sums.
Wealthy couple Liz (Talia Benatar) and Mike (Arkia Ashraf) are selling their four-bedroom house – well, three plus a small, windowless “internally lit” one – with a view to upscaling. Their smug pact to accept the first offer that meets their price swiftly unravels as larger sums and faster settlements flash before their acquisitive eyes.
They’re dealing with Clair (Olivia Hall-Smith), a mid-20s agent who’s a little too benign to share a cage with vendors and buyers at feeding-time. Having sewn up a sale with a country couple who must offload their own property before they settle, she receives a larger cash offer from sharp-talking James (Daniel Fletcher), and so the drama begins to snuff out the satire.
In Harry Reid’s Irregular Programming production, Hall-Smith excels in giving complexity and sinew to Clair, who’s trapped in a bedsit with trains screaming past her window, by way of getting just a fingernail on the property ladder. Hall-Smith finds all the layers of naivety, wisdom, shyness, morality and a gentle zest to get ahead in Clair.
Liz and Mike are more like caricatures from a Moliere play. They’re so selfish as to hire a teenaged Italian nanny (Jane Fuda) so they need never attend to their baby when it has the audacity to cry. As with James, almost all they say is a lie, which they then bend towards truth in their ugly minds. Ashraf and Benatar are good at realising the passion underpinning the marriage, but they can’t really salvage the characters, or dialogue that labours under repetitive “what do you mean?” style questions. Ashraf even ends up shouting more than is sociable in the tiny Old Fitz.
Just about any actor would struggle to hit a convincing tone for the predatory James, with his inane garrulity as he sets about grooming Clair rather than buying the house. Later, Fletcher’s given the impossible job of making it believable that James would answer the phone at the Clair’s flat, and sustain a conversation with her worried mum.
Bayley Prendergast completes the cast, admirably playing three minor parts, including a carpenter, the play’s only other likable person beyond Clair. The production is good enough to have glistening moments, but the play should have remained a satire, rather than half-heartedly trying to be serious about a young woman’s wanton destruction.
Until July 25.