Pomona - 4.5 out of 5 stars
Adelaide University Theatre Guild
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Alistair McDowall's Pomona is not a play interested in giving you easy answers. Directed by Thomas Midena, AUTG's production leans into that discomfort, trusting its audience to sit with – rather than solve – the questions it raises. Is this a bleak vision of a near-future city consumed by corporate indifference? A group of friends spinning a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that's bled into something darker? A slice of Lovecraftian horror hiding in plain sight? The production never spoon-feeds you the answer, and it's better for it.
The near-future setting is grungy and lived-in, urban decay
pressing in from every angle. Tahneisha Mottishaw's set makes inventive use of
pallets and milk crates, repurposing the same rough materials into a bed one
moment and an office desk the next – a nice echo of a city that repurposes
people just as readily. Costuming (Atticus Chave) leans a little too clean for
the grungy world McDowall's script demands – the wear-and-tear the set and
lighting sell so well doesn't quite make it onto the cast. Where it does work
is in the choice to dress several characters similarly, so the audience's
uncertainty about who's who becomes part of the design rather than a
distraction from it. Alice Smith's lighting does much of the heavy lifting in
selling the film-noir-meets-dystopia atmosphere, and Jenna Matulick's sound
design deserves credit – cues crossfade rather than cutting abruptly, so the
soundscape never once yanks you out of the moment.
The script's non-chronological structure asks a lot of its
cast, and this ensemble delivers. Every performer clearly knew exactly where
and when they were in the story, even when the audience needed a beat to catch
up – and when the pieces did click into place, you could hear it happen, with
audible gasps rippling through the room at moments tying back to scenes from
early in the play. The choice to keep off-stage cast visible, seated in the
aisles or up on the Little Theatre's bridge, adds a layer of voyeurism that
sharpens the play's horror and its commentary alike – you're never allowed to
forget you're being watched, too.
Mia Livingston-Pearce anchors the production as Ollie, a
wide-eyed, naive young woman searching for her missing sister – you believe her
innocence completely, which makes what she gets swept up in land all the
harder. Livingston-Pearce also takes on a second, murkier role later on (the
play's slippery chronology makes it hard to say for certain how the two truly
connect), portraying a woman doing whatever it takes to claw her way out of
debt, sliding into increasingly extreme work along the way.
Jessie Chugg's Charlie is a security guard resigned to never
amounting to much, played with a hard-won optimism that only comes from someone
who's already been through the worst of it. Chugg may or may not also be
playing a second character – a lonely Dungeon Master whose open invitation has
drawn exactly one player in four weeks – and the ambiguity is one of the
production's more haunting choices.
Louis Bianchini's Moe, Charlie's more switched-on
counterpart, is a difficult needle to thread: a man with an innate blood lust
he despises in himself, fighting to hold onto his humanity. Bianchini plays it
with real nuance, never tipping into caricature – and the second-half fight
choreography (Jethro Pidd) is a highlight, with one exchange between Bianchini
and Chugg so convincing I genuinely thought a head had connected with a wall.
Airlie-Jade Windle's Fay is matter-of-fact about her work –
it's a job, done to get by and support her family, not to get rich – which is
exactly why her decision to "get involved" and start pulling at the
thread of Pomona feels so quietly terrifying.
Lily Watkins plays Keaton as coldly robotic, devoid of
compassion, a character who seems to understand the dark truth of Pomona from
her very first entrance – so much so that when a friend dies, her only concern
is the unresolved cliffhanger in their D&D campaign.
Macey Lawson doesn't get much stage time as Zeppo but makes
every second count, playing a larger-than-life zest for living as armour
against ever truly caring about anyone. Zeppo's rule – don't get involved, even
if you own half the city – gets a joyful showcase in a musical number (composed
by Thomas Field) that the rest of the cast backs as enthusiastic karaoke
dancers, a welcome absurdist release valve in an otherwise bleak evening.
Jessica Merrick rounds out the cast as Gale, a brothel madam
who accepts her modest place in the system – until it's threatened, at which
point she unravels into hysterics. Merrick is at her best in Gale's moments of
power over those around her.
Midena's director's note insists this isn't a cynical play,
but that's a harder sell than he might like: this is a script about loops,
about lives that repeat themselves precisely because no one steps outside them,
and it's only in "getting involved" that the horror underneath
becomes visible. Glimmers of a hopeful reading surface in the closing scene,
but the play's own circular structure makes that optimism difficult to fully
justify. It's a disagreement with the play's philosophy though, not with the
work on stage – Midena has handled his cast and material with real care, giving
this ensemble the space to find their characters and come together as a
genuinely cohesive, fearless troupe.
AUTG's production of Pomona finds every ounce of
dread, absurdity and dark comedy this script has to offer, delivered by a cast
working in complete lockstep with each other and with the material. Audiences
will leave unsettled – not because the story spells anything out, but because
it deliberately doesn't, and you'll be turning it over in your head long after
the lights come up.
- Scott
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