Review: EUPHORIA at Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Thursday 6th May 2021.

Euphoria is a play with purpose. It is very funny but, when that serious purpose surfaces, we have become such a part of the story that that purpose hits home. Emily Steel draws on conversations she had in country towns, to create the vernacular dialogue, identifying each of the many characters who appear.

Director, Nescha Jelk, brings a lot of fun, and a real understanding of people, into her vision of the play The audience is drawn straight into the action and held right to the last minute.

Two single actors, Ashton Malcolm and James Smith, bring you a country town, where everybody knows everything, but secrets are kept and some things are just not spoken about. When that code of silence is broken, two stories emerge. Ashton Malcolm is Meg, the teacher who's been there for ten years and hopes she'll be regarded as a local. She wants to create a festival for the town. She is also, as the Americans would say 'off her meds'. James Smith is surly Ethan, cocky and brash. Malcolm is his best mate, the girl he falls for, and the pizza shop owner. Smith is her husband, Nick, her headmaster and, indeed, his own mother, Shawna, the postmistress.

Malcolm's charting of Meg's growing mania is focussed and totally convincing. Smith articulates skilfully Ethan's emotional confusion and sense of betrayal.

The instantaneous changes of character are cued by Nick Mollison's lighting on Meg Wilson's imaginative set, far more versatile than at first it may appear. As it opens up, the story develops. As it comes apart, so does Meg. Ethan breaks down, and the table, and all the goodies, crash to the ground.

I'd have liked a little more of Andrew Howard's music, the sound design being effective, the one really orchestral piece was a treat.

Among the production credits is one for a mental health professional, because this play will travel the state in the hope of allowing other stories to be told and understood, lives to be healed, and lives to be saved. It may be the salvation of people in small country towns and the biggest country town in the state, Adelaide.

Having been denied much live theatre for so long, I'm touched now by the craft of theatre, and of acting and of storytelling. Euphoria is an excellent example of all these things. I also note with immense pleasure that director, Nescha Jelk, James Smith, and Ashton Malcolm are Flinders Drama graduates.

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