Adelaide Fringe. South Australian Playwrights Theatre. The Lab. 2 Mar 2023
There is something magic about the unconventional performance space of The Lab: a wide V-shaped stage in the form of a catwalk merging two walls into a corner of the venue. The audience sits on the diagonal and the walls become a backdrop of wonderful artsy projections. It conveys a sense of calm and clean spaciousness.
It is fortunate for this production since its narrative is as dense and layered as the venue is pristine.
Recalibrate is a ferocious, multi-generational, life-and-death feminist work by Lucy Combe. All of its characters have agendas and few of them are likeable. Their emotional baggage is pain and guilt and then some.
Perhaps the old gal, Carmel, a university professor, draws most sympathy since she is undergoing repeated chemotherapy treatments for terminal ovarian cancer. The inimitable Jacqy Phillips embodies this role with fatalistic potency. She is depicted against the emphatic brightness of a giant projected IV drip facing not only death but the frustrations of failed feminist philosophies and obtuse academia. She rails against these fading lights while dealing with two disappointing daughters: the “good mother” and the “mad auntie”. Phillips, beautifully costumed as a faded hippie, has to convey the failure of an entire era; a tough call, which was oddly undermined by the overkill of selfies and a loud-hailer.
As Mary, the good mother, Katie O’Reilly presents a moving emotional rollercoaster of one whose life was upended by one terrible mistake while Emma Beech is the flip sister who has come home. Other characters pop in but focal interest remains on the sisters and the audience is not disappointed in the denouement. Meanwhile, there is Tessa whose intellectual acuity shines from a broken body. Her pain and disability do not detract from her promise as the hope for the future. The ever versatile Kelly Vincent portrays this character, controlling not only her mobility but a litany of text messages from her wheelchair.
There are many themes entwined in this 80-minute piece, directed by Elena Vereka: self-harm, sex, ageing, suicidal ideation, and emotional blackmail are among them, so a pretty play it is not. Aesthetic it is. And thought-provoking. Has Simon de Beauvoir’s legacy disappointed?
Samela Harris
When: 2 to 5 Mar
Where: The Lab
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
