A Lie of the Mind
By Sam Shepard
Directed by Peter Evans
Cast: Olivia Brown, Barry Donnelly, Jeff Gane, Bernadette Millar, Avril Peters, George Samuel, Katya Tarnawski and Anthony Thomas
New Theatre, Newtown
Until August 24
Reviewed by Allen Myers
The New Theatre has a well-earned reputation for presenting challenging drama that deals with real social issues. Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind was no doubt selected because of its theme of domestic violence, and some may also see it as relevant to the current "gun debate". Unfortunately, this production does not succeed, in large part because of a ridiculous practice which is almost a hallowed tradition in Australian theatre.
The New Theatre a few years ago did an excellent production of Brecht's Life of Galileo. None of the actors affected an Italian accent in honour of the scientist, nor a German one to acknowledge the author. Similarly, the New Theatre has just completed a very successful Hamlet, in which no-one found it necessary to render Shakespeare's script in a Danish accent.
Why, then, is it considered compulsory to perform plays set in the USA in a North American accent? Leave aside that in this production the accents are not done very well or consistently — they seldom are. Even if they were done flawlessly, they get in the way: most drama is not meant to be a study in linguistics.
In this production, the accents not only get between the audience and the content, but they also seem to have absorbed the attention of cast and director to the detriment of character development and dramatic coherence.
This is all the more unfortunate because A Lie of the Mind is not a play whose dialogue or plot rise so far above the ordinary as to overcome small failures in the execution. Shepard wants to explore the individual and social sources of domestic violence, but the program notes quote him admitting to considerable uncertainty about exactly what he had to say. This is the kind of situation where actors and director have to cover for the weaknesses of the script.
To take just the most obvious example: it was not an auspicious idea of Shepard to investigate domestic violence through characters who are socially marginalised — as though the problem were not something that permeates all levels of society. It depends on the performance to give the universality which the script hasn't provided. That's no doubt an unfair burden to place on the performers, but if theatre isn't about smoke and mirrors, what is?
Shepard's script exaggerates both character and plot to a point very near self-parody. It would seem to require inspired direction and acting to save it from crossing that line, and to refocus attention on the issues. That kind of inspiration was not there on opening night, and I don't think it will be found while the cast are worrying about getting the vowels "right".