Venue: Green Park (Darlinghurst NSW), Feb 5 – Mar 6, 2021
Playwright: Elias Jamieson Brown
Director: Declan Greene
Cast: Joseph Althouse, Steve Le Marquand
Images by Brett Boardman
Theatre review
Two men meet in a park, after having connected on a hook up app. Edden is young, out and Black, and Warren is middle-aged, closeted and White. In Elias Jamieson Brown’s Green Park, it is the sexual dalliance that brings different worlds together. Juxtaposing the most intimate of human acts against the severe divisions of twenty-first century life, the two characters engage in a constant tug-of-war, as we meditate on hopes of camaraderie and unity. Sex is by nature a binding force, yet it is able to reveal so poignantly, the fractures that exist between individuals.
It is a passionate and deeply truthful piece of writing from Jamieson Brown. His tragically flawed personalities offer insight into the ills of the day, shedding light on what we lack as a society, including the unfinished business of what many may consider the fulfilled destiny of the twentieth-century gay movement. We can now marry people of our own sex, but as we see in Green Park, so much harm continues to be inflicted on those unable to adhere to the straight and narrow. There is a lot that is painful and profound in the work, but the clandestine quality of this illicit and salacious encounter, makes for a rivetingly enjoyable show.
Directed by Declan Greene, who places the action inside the actual Green Park of Darlinghurst, with all walls of a usual theatrical space removed, insisting that the audience sees not only the performers, but also the historically significant location that lends its name to the play. Unintended supporting actors surround the action, offering real life noise that make us look over our shoulders, as we sense the omnipresent threat of violence that queer people must live with, everyday of our lives. Greene imbues an uncanny realism that draws us in, for both the theatrical moment unfolding, and the palpable non-fiction concerns to which his work refers.
Actor Joseph Althouse is remarkably convincing as the erratic Edden, powerfully embodying the risky existence of a young lost soul. He introduces a resonant defiance to his nuanced depiction of a sexual masochist, confronting us with the disturbing notion of a Black man roaming the streets (and the internet), asking to be dominated, albeit in his own terms. Steve Le Marquand skillfully turns a sad cliché of a man into someone whose story proves to be surprisingly moving. It is a complicated range of emotions that the role requires, and Le Marquand’s deftness at bringing clear articulation to each of Warren’s interior states, is very impressive. Also laudable is the degree to which the pair is in sync with one another. They move through the show’s many tonal fluctuations in tight unison, always keeping in mutual rhythm, no matter how the narrative alters its trajectory.
It is noteworthy that performances are enhanced by the provision of headphones, that prevent us from losing any word of dialogue to the open air conditions. David Bergman’s sound design is effective in manufacturing a sense of the natural to accompany the outdoors context of the production, and equally potent when dialing up the theatrical, for sequences that involve greater sensory elevation.
Edden and Warren think all they want is some no-strings sex, but it is evident that to compartmentalise sexuality, to separate it from the rest of our lives, is not as simple as it may seem. We are made from sex, and we continue to live in cultures that are always partially, but fundamentally, defined by sex. It creates conventions, tells us what is acceptable and what is not; it upholds hierarchies, aggrandising certain people and oppressing others. Both men in Green Park suffer as a result of their libidinal impulses. They are punished by others, as well as by themselves, for something that occurs naturally between consenting adults. The play Green Park, like its namesake on which the Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial stands, is a reminder that so much of what underpins our ways of lives, is dreadfully unkind. Hence, no matter which stripe of the rainbow one aligns with, complacency is not quite yet, a luxury any of us can afford.
Suzy Goes See 