I first discovered
Ross Mueller’s Construction
of the Human Heart in 2008 or 2009, in the university library, and became
fascinated by its conceit, its design and its delicious ambiguity, but until
now have not had a chance to see it performed. Enter then, Apocalypse Theatre Company with
their current production currently playing at the intimate Tap Gallery theatre
in Darlinghurst. Written in one act, Mueller’s play unfolds with a directness
and a beguiling fragility, and exposes the very constructedness of theatre.
Perhaps better
called ‘Deconstructing theatre’, the story revolves around a Couple, two
unnamed characters, simply referred to as ‘Him’ and ‘Her’. They are both
playwrights, we discover, and as the play unfolds over its lean sixty-five
minutes, they build around themselves as much as us a fortress of words. But,
like the best defences, it begins to crack, until their words crack open,
meaning bleeding onto the stage, and they desperately cling to their disappearing
words, to themselves, to each other, trying to remember how to go on, how to Be.
Directed by Dino
Dimitriadis, the play unfolds as it should, almost in real-time, in front of
our eyes. It’s a bit like a staged reading, in a way, an open rehearsal, albeit
one which is entirely scripted. Dimitriadis’ direction is subtle, invisible,
perhaps too much so, but it suits the piece perfectly, and there is a roughness
to it, an uncomfortable aftertaste which Mueller deliberately writes into the
script, and which is left raw by the actors and director. In a way, its
self-reflexive theatre – by being purposefully raw and rough, it both exposes
the artifice of theatre at the same time as erecting its own: the reality of
its two writers trying to live, continue, telling stories.
As Him and Her,
Michael Cullen and Cat Martin are well-matched. While Cullen’s Him has a real
anger underneath his playfulness, there is also a real vulnerability, and at
the play’s end, as the pack of cards crumbles around them, you can see just how
scared Him is at the very real possibility of it all unravelling beneath his
very feet. As Her, Cat Martin felt as though she was perhaps acting too much,
that Her was too much of an act. Despite this veneer of artificiality, there
were many tangible moments between the Couple, where their playfulness and
nature of their relationship rose to the fore and created a little bit of stage–magic.
The moment late in the piece, Scene Eight in the script, where they sit on the
bed together, against the wall, as Him tells Her about the new play he’s
working on – there’s a rough magic there, as in many other instances, and it comes
as much from the director and cast as from the simple – and clever – use of
three bare light bulbs to create an ambience and cocooning depth in the space.
Mueller’s script
is deliberately ambiguous, constantly switching between ‘on-script’ – essentially
the ‘play’ we are watching – and ‘off-script’, where moments of ‘real life’ seep
through the cracks and break the barely-apparent fourth wall. There are shades
too of Matt Cameron’s much-studied Ruby Moon, as the
Couple have a child, Tom, a boy who may or may not exist, depending on the
situation, given circumstances of the scene, or whether they are off- or
on-script; whether they are creating their world or whether it is falling in
slabs around them. It is as frustrating and perplexing as it is intriguing and captivating,
and Dimitriadis’ directorial navigation does not falter across its duration.
As Construction of the Human Heart lays its
heart on the (bare) stage for all to see, so too the actors bare their souls
and their craft; by its end, you may as well believe that the play has happened
to them in its entirety and they are merely relating it to you. Nothing exists outside
of the four black walls of the theatre; indeed, it seems as though the theatre
itself is built from words, a feat that is as old as theatre itself. To quote Stoppard,
our world as much as theirs is built from “words, words [;] they’re all we have
to go on.”
Theatre playlist: 22. Lost Fur, Carter Burwell
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