Blackrock - 4.5 out of 5 stars
Deadset Theatre Company
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Deadset Theatre Company has established itself as one of Adelaide’s most purposeful youth-focused theatre companies, creating opportunities for young performers aged 16-25 to engage with challenging, contemporary work that is authentic, immersive and relevant to their lives. Nick Enright’s Blackrock, directed by Ben Proeve, is exactly the kind of material for which the company exists.
This production carries trigger warnings including
Femicide, rape, and sexual assault, as well as an unmentioned TW for suicide.
While remaining as spoiler-free as possible, this review may carry the same.
Take care while reading ahead.
Nick Enright’s 1995 play is a landmark of Australian drama:
a tough examination of the cycle of violence, victim blaming and toxic
mate-ship. Set in a beachside suburb, it begins with Toby’s birthday party on
the beach where alcohol, drugs and masculine bravado promise a night of escape,
before a young woman is raped and murdered.
Unfortunately, 30 years later, the tough examinations are
still required, and this play remains highly relevant. Blackrock is less
interested in the crime itself than in its aftermath: the pressure to remain
silent, the fracturing of friendships, and the moral reckoning faced by those
who saw more than they wished to see.
Proeve, along with AD Zoe Morgan directs with admirable
control and respect, allowing the play’s tension to accumulate rather than
forcing its emotional peaks. He understands that Blackrock works through
atmosphere, silence and shifting loyalties as much as through confrontation. He
draws naturalistic performances from his cast while keeping the play’s ethical
questions firmly at the centre. The team handles the production’s confronting
subject matter with care.
The staging dynamic presents some challenges, with audiences
positioned on either side of the action and often turning their heads from one
side to the other, much like spectators at a tennis match. Yet this intimacy
also intensifies the production, drawing the audience into the themes, heightening
the characters’ actions, and creating the uncomfortable awareness that we are
witnesses to events we cannot change. Morgan operates the tech with smooth
precision without drawing attention despite sitting in plain sight of half the
audience.
Johnathon Montgomery captures Jared’s initial need to
belong, then traces his growing guilt, confusion and isolation with impressive
subtlety. Montgomery is equally strong in the quieter scenes, where hesitation,
avoidance and a single change in expression reveal what is written within the
subtext. His character climax is appropriately unsettling to witness yet is
blocked with respect to both actors involved.
Archie Allert is a magnetic Ricko: charismatic, confident
and intimidating. Allert makes Ricko’s influence over the younger characters
entirely believable, playing the character’s charm against a sense of danger.
Allert understands that Ricko’s power comes not only from physical presence but
from manipulation, status and the expectations of mate-ship.
Lucy Thompson gives Tiffany a painful vulnerability and
dignity. She resists making Tiffany merely a victim, instead revealing a young
woman caught in a relationship marked by contempt, control and emotional
damage. Thompson’s performance makes the play’s gender politics feel immediate
and personal.
James Pearce brings out Scott’s casual aggression,
insecurity and peer pressure beneath the character’s bravado, making him recognisably
human without softening his behaviour. His scenes demonstrate how quickly
cruelty can be normalised within a group.
Dhruva Nagaraj gives Davo a convincing mix of bravado,
immaturity and unease. He is well cast among the group of young men,
contributing to the production’s sense of a tight, volatile social circle in
which loyalty and fear are difficult to separate.
Annabel McGregor is quietly affecting as Shana. As Shana
withdraws in the aftermath of the events that shatter the group, McGregor
conveys that emotional shutdown with restraint rather than melodrama. Her
performance suggests a young woman trying not to feel anything because feeling becomes
dangerous.
Millie Grainger stands out as a sharp, emotionally raw
Rachel: Jared’s girlfriend and Toby’s younger sister. She gives Rachel a
necessary strength, making her frustration with Jared’s secrecy and distance
entirely understandable. Grainger ensures Rachel is not simply defined by her
relationship with Jared – but stands as one of the play’s morally perceptive
young women. Her performance is especially affecting in one scene, where she
cries openly on stage with striking honesty.
Izzy Walters is deeply moving as Cherie, bringing rawness
and conviction to her sorrow, anger and loyalty, making her one of the
production’s strongest emotional anchors. Her scenes give the victim at the
centre of the story a continuing human presence. Her dance performance to
Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen, giving full release to her grief, and anger was
a highlight.
Archer Strevens is effective as Toby, conveying the
character’s defensiveness and the way group loyalty can become a shield against
responsibility. His performance adds to the production’s sense of a tight-knit
group in which silence, fear and loyalty are dangerously entangled.
Todd Gray brings a troubling authority to Stewart, playing
the protective father whose instinct to shield his son exposes adult
complicity. Gray also takes on the roles of Len and Roy, demonstrating a great range
as he shifts between distinctly different characters across the play.
Heather Crawford is excellent as Diane, Jared’s mother, balancing
warmth, exhaustion and fear. She gives Diane a genuine emotional life even as
her relationship with Jared comes under unbearable strain, while Leah Lowe is
chillingly persuasive as Glenys, Cherie’s mother, whose victim-blaming response
reveals how misogyny and denial is passed on within families and the community.
Deadset Theatre Company’s Blackrock is brave, disciplined
and deeply felt theatre. Ben Proeve guides a young ensemble through difficult
material with maturity and care, producing a production that neither
sensationalises nor softens Enright’s play. This is not a fun night out. It is confronting
work. But it is also urgent and vital—the kind of theatre that asks its
audience not simply to witness violence, but to recognise the silences,
attitudes and loyalties that allow it to happen… and do something about it.
BONUS REVIEW: “More young men need to see this production!”
- Andrew Broadbent
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