Review: GORGON Deals With Youth Deaths And Coping With Grief

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Tuesday 3rd May 2016

Elena Karapetis is a familiar name to audiences of the State Theatre Company of South Australia, appearing regularly in productions. She has recently moved into the area of scriptwriting and the company is presenting her second play, Gorgon. Her first was The Good Son. It is being presented through the State R&D program and the State Theatre Company Education Donor Circle. It is a one act play in two sections, the first introducing Lee and his best friend, Mario, known as 'Maz', and the second showing an encounter a year later between Lee and Maz's twin sister, Lola.

Nescha Jelk has directed this work about, and aimed at younger people, that forms part of the company's education programme. Students attend the performance and educational packages are provided to teachers for classroom studies and activities. Jelk's direction is precise and transparent.

Both young men are car crazy and we see Lee absorbed in a car racing game, side-slipping around corners. On Maz's eighteenth birthday they go for a drive in his car but, when Lee is given a chance to drive and is encouraged by Maz to go faster, he tries drifting around a corner, and the shaken Maz retakes the wheel. Alcohol, drugs, and a mobile phone distracting Maz all lead to a fatal crash, with Lee the survivor.

On her nineteenth birthday, Lola has finally tracked down Lee, who vanished after being released from hospital, and she visits him unannounced, to find him living alone in squalor, surviving on a diet of delivered pizzas and cans of drink, and never leaving his flat, absorbing himself in his books. In some Greek and Italian families, boys are still considered the important children and the girls do not really matter, as they are only expected to become wives and mothers. She is sick of hearing her parents praising her deceased brother who was, as we can see, far from special and rather unpleasant, and she wants to know why Maz hated her so much. Lee is not interested in talking, however, as he is still silently wallowing in self-pity over the fact that he lived while Maz died.

Kathryn Sproul's design is also in two parts, initially a section of blank wall in front of which is Lee sitting on a couch, playing computer games. Chris Petridis supplies minimal flickering lighting from the game and a small rectangle illuminating Lee's face, with a wash over the couch when it becomes the bench seat in Maz's car. For the second half, the wall breaks in two and swings out until it becomes part of the walls of Lee's flat, as the light brightens and floods the room. It is an intriguing juxtaposition, with what are supposedly the good times for Lee and Maz are visually presented as the darkest times, and the seemingly unhappy times that follow are bright.

James Smith plays Lee and Chiara Gabrielli plays both Maz and Lola, twins who are very similar in appearance, but unalike almost every other respect. There is not a moment of hesitation in their delivery and their characterisations a strong and consistent.

Composer, Will Spartalis, provides the music from the computer game and from the car radio but, on opening night, I found a lot of the dialogue difficult to follow for a number of reasons, one of which is that the background sounds were a little too loud and sometimes drowned the voices. The dialogue was rapidly delivered, overlapped, and Gabrielli's caricature accent, reminiscent of Effie in the dreadfully unfunny old television series, Acropolis Now, all combined to make it difficult to follow at times. The general idea came across, which is the most important thing, but some detail was lost.

The second half was the opposite, with Gabrielli dropping the accent and both performers enunciating and projecting far better than before, enabling the audience to follow all of the importance of the dialogue as Lola tries to coax Lee out of his shell to give her the answers that she seeks, including the new question of why Lee has hidden himself away for a year and shows no sign whatsoever of rejoining the world. Sorting out both of their lives in a half hour seems a trifle contrived but, in real life, it would probably takes years of therapy, and who would want to sit through that. It does set up many points for discussion and, as an educational piece, it achieves its intention.

Young people will find this relevant and approachable, and some may even have already lost friends or relatives and had to cope with the grief, without the skills that come as one goes through life. This play, and further group work and discussion, could help them and, as such, it is to be recommended.

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