REVIEWS
The Age
"Theatre company Two Blue Cherries is committed to bringing Australian stories to the stage. Its decision to adapt Peter Goldsworthy's novel Three Dog Night - a dramatically assured three-hander that lends itself to theatre - is a canny choice.
The show is stolen by McInnes' magnificent performance. his Felix is dishevelled and saturine, smouldering with intense charisma even at his most repellent. he brings a light touch to the dark humour, and confident understatement to the even blacker drama.
Kalive gives a crisp sketch of Lucy, a kind woman tormented by the pain of others and the memory of her own. Stitz's uxorious bliss is convincing.... Andrew Gray's direction excels at animating Golsworthy's ironic repartee. The naturalistic drama is also surefooted.... [the design] presents the psychological distance between the characters... And Misha Doumnov's incidental music - a mix of live violin and pre-recorded sounds - adds a pensive texture. Goldsworthy's novel involves a dramatic triangulation between love and death and the life of the mind... this production encapsulates that tension in a compelling way."
Cameron Woodhead, May 23rd 2008
On Stage (and walls) Melbourne
News and reviews of theatre, music and visual arts
"Two Blue Cherries is a new independent theatre company making an impressive debut in an adaptation of a highly praised recent Australian novel by Peter Goldsworty. Three Dog Night is the story of two friends, Martin (Tim Stitz) a psychiatrist and Felix (Phil McInnes) a surgeon. Felix has worked with indigenous communities and been adopted into one but has betrayed their law and is a now an outcast. Now ill and alone Felix lives in isolation. Arriving from England Martin, with his new wife Lucy (Petra Kalive) determines to break through Felix’s defences,at first to learn the reason for his withdrawal and then with Lucy help him face death. All three are highly trained professionals, Felix and Martin are both well read in philosophy from the Greeks to Freud but the uneasy clash of his own Western and rational culture with his adopted indigenous culture has unbalanced Felix. The closer Martin and Lucy get to Felix the more they surrender their own professional and personal control to something beyond their understanding. For all his knowledge and acceptance of the culture he has lived in for so long Felix is reluctant, perhaps unable, to explain it to Martin or Lucy. Lucy, given a valuable artwork by Felix as present can only appreciate it as an object of value but as close as she is drawn to Felix, and through him, Aboriginal culture, the uncharted physical and emotional landscape remain a mystery to her. Her Englishness at the mercy of "Terra (terror?) Australis" is a continuation of the great theme in literature and art of woman lost in the bush. Three Dog Night operates on many archetypal levels, rigid Western rationalism confronting traditional cultural beliefs, spiritual and intellectual breakdown. Even the story of sexual betrayal by a wife with a best friend is a familiar archetype that often haunts literature and drama.
Originally the novel is narrated by Martin and focuses on his reaction to the conservative Lucy succumbing to Felix’s squalid nihilism. Martin’s psychiatric background and the duelling philosophies between him and Felix made for a subliminal experience. The adaptation, interestingly, is about the same length as a feature film. Unlike a film which would have been able to incorporate the all important landscape into the visual narrative. Kalive's version is very human focused making Felix's and Martin's existential breakdowns a physical reality while the crisis of the story is reduced to the basic qualities of love and loyalty as Lucy is drawn to Felix and away from Martin.
The opposing worlds of Felix and Martin are laid out on opposite sides of the stage. Martin’s dominated by white orderly curtains while Felix’s side is draped in black and decorated with artifacts from his original and adopted culture. Although dominated by the central Australian wilderness unknown to westerners the play becomes a story of three people lost in a wilderness of emotion they cannot comprehend. The sight and sound of the landscape is suggested by soft yellow light and an array of sound effects and most effectively by a continuous live musical score, sounding something like the soundtracks from Paris Texas or Dead Man. All these elements reach a peak followed by superbly intense climax where all three actors give powerful performances. The simple staging has a cinematic quality but never dominating the action, quite the reverse, the closer the story moves towards it conclusion the closer the actors move toward the audience in the intense but intimate ending. Two Blue Cherries have demonstrated their belief that "story writing and strong text are integral to theatre practice and to understanding the world and ourselves better" in a very impressive debut production and are a welcome addition to Melbourne’s professional theatre community."
Michael Magneson, May 16th 2008