Reviewed by Petra Schulenburg, Thursday 24th May 2018.
Terrestrial is the story of Liddy, a 'teenage alien obsessive' and her friendship with 15-year-old local boy Badar. Liddy and her mother have moved to a remote South Awstralian town to escape a past that pursues them, whereas cynical, witty Badar has lived his whole life in a mining community that is now turning into a ghost town before his eyes. They are both outsiders, trying to find their feet in a changing landscape. When Badar suddenly disappears, Liddy has to distinguish between reality and fantasy to help find him.
Insightfully written by award-winning playwright, Fleur Kilpatrick, Terrestrial explores how our experiences, relationships and environment shape the way we see the world. This is true for us at any age, but never more so than as teenagers navigating the territory to adulthood. Kilpatrick's work successfully combines 'real world' dialogue and scenarios with a lyrical prose that takes us on a journey filled with wonder and warmth as well as human fear and frailty.
Actors, Annabel Matheson and Patrick Jhanur, deliver wonderful performances as Liddy and Badar. They completely inhabit their, very opposite characters, both physically and vocally, and the audience can easily recognise themselves, and/or their children, in these characters so truthfully rendered on stage. Veteran Adelaide actor, Patrick Frost, brings warmth and compassion to the voice of authority. Unseen by the audience, he is, nevertheless, completely present.
Terrestrial has been tightly and artfully directed by Nescha Yelk, a 2010 first class honours graduate of the Flinders University Drama Centre directing course, who has directed multiple shows for State Theatre, amongst other projects. Every nuance has been lifted from the page, and the dialogue and scene transitions are rapid and tight without ever betraying the text or characters.
This season of Terrestrial is a world premiere, produced by the State Theatre Company of South Australia as part of its Education Program. Designed to tour regionally to an audience of young adults, the set at first appears deceptively simple but quickly surprises as it transports us, through the use of projection and lighting effects, from schools, to empty houses, from an interrogation room, to the outback. Both striking and versatile, the set was designed by Meg Wilson, an Adelaide based artist whose work "aims to provoke... uneasiness and a sense of drama in the everyday".
The set links closely with a stunning lighting design by Chris Petridis. Never has the outback night sky been so simply and powerfully created on stage; truly magical. The action and scene changes are underscored by a, by turns, subtle and dramatic soundscape created by
Andrew Howard, the resident sound designer at State Theatre Company.
Terrestrial is everything that good theatre should be and, even better, it has been made to be seen by a new generation of theatregoers. It is both thought-provoking and relevant, while transporting its audience to places of wonder within the human heart.
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