Gardens Theatre presents Embers, a co-production by Sydney Theatre Company and the leading regional Hot House Theatre. The play by Campion Decent was winner of the 2007 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Drama Script (Stage) and the 2007 AWGIE Award for Community Theatre.
The play gives an extraordinary account of the people who fought more than 80 fires ignited in Victoria’s North East and Gippsland in January 2003. Decent, a former journalist now dramaturge, has based the play on interviews he conducted with about 70 people as well as parliamentary transcripts of the enquiries into the fires. The play gives an insight into what it means to be an Australian in a community facing a natural disaster. The story takes on a special significance and relevance in light of the recent Black Saturday bushfires.
Decent has used the real words from interviewees to construct a verbatim style of theatre. The emphasis in the writing is not on plot or character development. Rather the story of the fires is told through a collage of individual stories within the story. Seven actors play all the roles – farmers, fire fighters (volunteered and paid), relief workers, members of the media and those involved in the subsequent enquiries. The actors make minor costume changes on stage and more significant costume changes off stage to alert the audience of a change in role. Each character has a distinctive speech pattern and vocabulary. The stories themselves are tragic, chilling, inspiring, stoic and, at times, humorous. Maggie Blinco, Tracy Mann and Noel Hodda, in particular, create wonderful Australian characters. Images of the fires remain etched in your mind such as the man who bears a scar on his face where the heat of the fire melted his spectacles or the man whose skin still smelt of smoke several weeks after the fire.
The set, lighting and sound design are simple and effectively compliment each other. A mural depicting a burnt out forest is lit with different lighting to effect a change in mood. The stage is lit with red, brown and green lights to convey the forest at its various stages. A haunting sound is injected at selected moments to intensify the story telling.
The play runs for 2 hours and 20 minutes, including a 20 minute interval, which is possibly a little long for its structure. The script would benefit from further refinement, and in particular, by establishing a closer connection between the stories within the story so as to create a piece of theatre which is theatrically compelling as a whole.
Directed by Maelisoa Stafford
Starring Julie Billington, Maggie Blinco, Julian Curtis, Alan Flower, Noel Hodda, Tracy Mann and Mark Pegler
Costume Designer Wiggy Brennan
Lighting Designer Martin Kinnane
Composer/Sound Designer Steve Francis
Set Designer Gordon Bur
Image used with Permission of QUT Gardens Theatre
