Review: Kin Collective's SHRINE at 45 Downstairs

Reviewed by Ian Andrew

Kin Collective's beautifully-realised production of Tim Winton's Shrine is a haunting and ethereal exploration of loss, grief and the interwoven lives of those fallen beneath the 'long shadow' of a life cut short. Director Marcel Dorny has assembled a strong cast and creative team to breathe life into Winton's dense script and the result is a memorable and moving piece of theatre replete with all of the embattled characters, magical-realism and endless references to blood and water that fans of the writer have come to expect.

Intimately staged in the austere basement of fortyfivedownstairs Leon Salom delivers an angular minimalist set centred around a weathered brick slab endowed as any object the scene requires, from car to coffin to kitchen table. Navigating about this illuminated centrepiece the cast admirably impart Winton's simile-laden dialogue against the backdrop of one of the venue's stark industrial brick walls.

Chris Bunworth captivates as the grieving father Adam Mansfield, a former winery owner and property developer turned reclusive wine-drinker struggling to process the loss of his son Jack in a car accident. Bunsworth's journey is intense and convincing, brimming with numb indifference and icy rage, and most of the productions finest moments occur during his interactions with local teenager June Fenton (Tenielle Thompson) as she attempts to reveal the undisclosed events of Jack's final hours. Thompson's performance is effervescent and charismatic - perhaps too much so for the traumatised teenager she portrays and her oft-mentioned status as a lower-class 'bush-pig' does not seem reflected in her manner and speech - but she shines during the retelling of Jack's final night, weaving a genuinely immersive narrative from what could easily have become a verbose and improbable story in less accomplished hands.

Making spectral appearances throughout the story as Jack, Christian Taylor is similarly at his best when recounting his final hours in tandem with Thompson, though he struggles at times to make some of the more metaphorical dialogue believable, as does Alexandra Fowler as Jack's grief-stricken mother Mary whose underwritten part is mostly relegated to a series of second-person backstory monologues, constantly forcing her to semi-narrate her own scenes and perhaps robbing her of opportunities to fully realise the character. Nonetheless her heartbreaking wailing at Jack's funeral and her closing flashback to watching a young Jack play in the surf are unquestionable highlights.

Rounding off the small cast are Jack's guilt-ridden private-school friends Will (Nick Clark) and Ben (Keith Brockett). Initially innocuous and ultimately culpable, both deliver memorable and complimentary performances. Clark is particularly memorable as the privileged and self-serving disingenuous law student that audiences will love to hate right up until his final lines.

The exquisite lighting and sound transforms the production from what might have been a wordy recitation of a short-story into an immersive work of theatre. Kris Chainey's dim and subtle lighting gives the entire production a surreal dream-like quality and from the moment the audience enters director Marcel Dorny fills the theatre with evocative and ever-changing elemental soundscapes - costal waves heard from the clifftop, a storm on a beach, a distant tune drifting on the wind - to magnificent effect.

Previous productions of the play were criticised for the distracting complexity of the set and the excessively turgid script - this version strikes a balance in its subtle implications of time and place, demanding audiences engage with Winton's word-painting to fill in the scenes and, in this way, asking us to invest personally in the narrative rather than merely act as passive observers to some external story. At a very manageable 100 minutes run-time this highly professional and ultimately memorable production is well worth a look.

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