Venue: KXT on Broadway (Ultimo NSW), Mar 15 – 30, 2024
Playwright: Madeleine Stedman
Director: Kim Hardwick
Cast: Violette Ayad, Shaw Cameron, Anna Clark, Melissa Jones, Shawnee Jones, Nikita Khromykh, , Tinashe Mangwana, Teodora Matovic, Brendan Miles, Jack Richardson, Charlotte Salusinszky, Sarah Jane Starr
Images by Clare Hawley
Theatre review
Madeleine Stedman’s Mercury Poisoning involves three women in the 1960s, inspired by true stories about their respective relationships with space travel. These lives never cross paths, but they are in some ways parallel, not only in aeronautical terms, but also with their fights against structural sexism, which proves a defining force. While well-conceived, more effort could be made for the narratives in Mercury Poisoning to intertwine, instead of having them completely segregated.
Direction by Kim Hardwick attempts to make up for that lack in coherence between the different threads, with creative use of visual compositions. There is a sincerity in her presentation that helps with our logical engagement with the piece, but a persistent coolness in temperament prevents us from investing sufficiently into the emotions being explored.
Set design by Meg Anderson and lights by Jimi Rawlings are effective in evoking outer space, but the imagery being produced is too relentlessly dark, which makes it a struggle for the production to lift in energy, especially noticeable in comedic scenes. Sound design by Rowan Yeomans and Jay Rae is however very strong, bringing to the storytelling, an enjoyable sense of theatricality.
Actors Violette Ayad, Shawnee Jones and Teodora Matovic play the main roles, all able to convey authenticity and vulnerability for these discussions about challenges faced by women at the workplace. A big roster of supporting cast members bring variety to the experience, admirable for the frequent rotation of characters they bring to the stage.
In Mercury Poisoning we see the ways in which power manifests, and how so much of our resources is organised around concepts of deprivation. The three women are deterred from attaining what so many of their white male counterparts have achieved. Through their stories, we observe how a certain caste of society is determined to keep privileges to themselves, convinced that there is not enough for everyone. It is clear they know, that what makes them feel special about their own lives, can only come from the dispossession of others.
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