Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), 3 May – 8 Jun, 2024
Playwright: Joanna Murray-Smith
Director: Shaun Rennie
Cast: Laurence Boxhall, Toni Scanlan
Images by Brett Boardman
Theatre review
The famous author Patricia Highsmith is visited in the Swiss alps, by a junior member of her publisher’s office. Everybody it seems, wants another instalment of her Ripley novels, but Highsmith is making things very hard, including for herself. For all the bravado she displays, there is clearly a crisis of confidence underway. Young Edward however, is determined to have the new book completed, even if it means having to contend with the artist’s impossible insolence.
The wit in Joanna Murray-Smith’s Switzerland is remarkable, with an unrelenting acerbity that director Shaun Rennie uses to great effect, for a show that is as hilarious as it is thrilling. The humorous acrimony is established from curtains up, but a creeping sense of mortal danger develops decisively over the three acts, as the general tone turns indubitably darker. Fatalistic as it might be, Switzerland is also wonderfully poetic, in its rendering of the creative process, and of the nature of inspiration itself. Murray-Smith’s explorations into the meaning of art, for an artist like Highsmith, turns out to be deeply rewarding, for the rest of us who are unlikely to experience that level of accomplishment.
Actor Toni Scanlan brings extraordinary charm to the comical bitterness of Highsmith’s schtick. The character we encounter feels authentic, whilst being irresistibly theatrical, and we find ourselves incredulously mesmerised by that unremitting wickedness. Laurence Boxhall is fabulously nuanced as the stealthily talented Edward, offering endless layers beyond a sparkling American surface, convincing whether playing naïve or morbidly cynical. Chemistry between the two is electric, effortlessly sustained for 90 minutes of delicious storytelling.
Costumes by Kelsey Lee are appropriate in every way, never distracting and in a sufficiently vibrant palette to help us endear to both personalities. Set design by Veronique Benett is thoroughly elegant, for a home that absolutely befits Highsmith’s status and exacting standards. Benett’s lights, along with Kelly Ryall’s music, are unostentatious to begin with, but as the action turns noir, both rise to the occasion and deliver dramatic transformations to atmosphere that have us spellbound.
In Highsmith’s world, people are never who they seem to be. One may go so far, in Switzerland, to conclude that people rarely even know who they really are. We yearn to have firm grasps of our own identities – it makes our essential evanescence tolerable – but the whole truth of each person’s existence, seems eternally to be a mystery. What is real, is that we continue to seek pathways to understanding, and in that persistence, we can only hope that what we find, is not only glorious, but good.
Suzy Goes See 