Review: Purgatorio is a surreal examination of forgiveness
Written by Ariel Dorfman, Directed by Lachlan Stevenson
Review by Charlotte Smee
Could you forgive your partner for leaving you for a “new model” after you gave them everything, moved to a new country for them, and bore them two children? What about the person who killed your new partner and your children after you told her you couldn’t be with her anymore?
Human rights poet/essayist/playwright/journalist/activist Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio sets the impossible dilemmas of the Jason and Medea myth in a “soulless white room”; a magical somewhere that looks something like a prison cell, and features nameless characters in lab coats trying to teach forgiveness. This highly strung and always engaging performance by Stacks On Theatre will leave you with tearful eyes and racing thoughts, even if you don’t know anything about the myth that it’s based on.
This version of Purgatorio is directed by Lachlan Stevenson and features Jessica Paterson as “Woman”, and James Thomasson as “Man”. At first, they circle around each other, with Man in a lab coat and Woman learning to talk about the unspeakable thing she has done. Paterson’s eyes are a glistening focus point that Stevenson highlights throughout the performance, always threatening tears and yet never spilling over into melodrama. Thomasson really comes into his own when the roles are switched, and Woman dons her lab coat to ask him about his side of the story. His slow, measured countdown in the darkness between scenes was very effective too. Sometimes Thomasson’s athletic movement distracts from the tension, but both his and Paterson’s expressive voices are strong enough to keep it balanced.
The “soulless white room” is a small square inside the Flow Studios gallery, edged by an LED strip that goes from blue, to white, to red; a simple way to emphasise and guide the changing moods of the text. The audience and the actors all enter through the same rectangular archway, and sit on similar white, plastic chairs – we are all complicit in this forgiveness workshop. The only props featured are a white metal bed, a small white desk, a knife, some glasses, a lab coat, a leather bag, some white IKEA chairs and a white vase. Eerie soundscapes underscore the darkness between scenes. Nothing is wasted in this production, and the focus is rightly on the actors and their audience.
The highpoint of the performance is a brilliantly written, acted, and timed “smash” that quickly stops the constant motion of the dialogue in its tracks. It gives our ears a moment of reprieve and an opportunity for our brains to catch up. Stevenson has chosen a simple trick to play here, and the heavy silence between Man and Woman in these moments is menacing. The repetition in the text is also drawn out expertly, giving just enough clues for the penny to drop and a soft gasp to escape from the audience.
Dorfman’s script never outright names Jason or Medea as who they are, but instead chooses to focus on the moments after their deaths and the impossibility of forgiving each other for their respective crimes. He once said that he wanted to create characters who couldn’t shed their responsibility “by blaming government or history”. This is a tricky thing to reconcile, but then so is the idea of justifying your own actions when they involve hurting other people. I cannot pretend to know what it’s like to make decisions in the context of war, but this play gives a sharp insight into the heightened emotions involved when we do things we know are “wrong” and the ridiculous and necessary journey towards forgiveness that follows. It doesn’t try to contain all the answers and instead invites you to fill in your own blanks; just like all great theatre should. An impressive production of a nuanced emotional puzzle.
Purgatorio plays at Flow Studios, Camperdown until 3 December. Find tickets here.
Images by Sarah Nader
Charlotte is the editor of Kaleidoscope Arts Journal, a little enby and a big mess. Their friends regularly worry that they might overdose on theatre.
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