Water Wars

Company: Umber Productions & La Boite Indie
Venue: Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove, Brisbane
Dates: To 20 August 2011

Water Wars is Elaine Acworth’s latest play. It is set some time in the not-too-distant future when global warming has created a drought even bigger than the last one we had in Australia and water restrictions are even more draconian.

It tells the story of three households in a street and how they deal with the lack of water and the Water Police who roar over head in helicopters to catch out cheats. It’s all about effects of conservation and trauma.

I quite enjoyed the whole thing as a play and concept. I didn’t get the chance to look at the program before the show started but when I did the first thing that hit me was the brilliant lighting and sound design. Not only was it very effective, but somehow looked different.

I read the program just before writing this review and discovered that it was a world premiere and that David Walters did the lighting and used the latest energy saving LED technology. Apparently the lighting for the show used the same amount of electricity that comes from one plug in an ordinary home. There was a big conservation message there. And to keep up with the save-the-planet theme, the small programs were recyclable in a big way - patrons were asked to give them back to box office so they could be used for the next show.

Guy Webster did the sound design and that was brilliant too, with perfect timing as taps were turned on and off as invisible water flowed through them – and his chopper noises were quite scary as was the eerie sound of water lapping around the houses in flashbacks to the last flood. Director Shaun Charles did a very creative job with his cast and crew.

I liked the set too, a tree house in the centre, and pathetic little gardens at the front with simple line-drawn houses as a backdrop. The set-up up gave the actors a really atmospheric work space. There were five of them; two played solo roles while the other three played a couple of characters, all them at least slightly mad and some even more so.

There was the old lady, Patricia, who also turned up in flashback as a younger Mrs P. She was played by Kate Foy, under her stage name of Kate Wilson. This actually marked her return to the stage after many years as a professor at USQ and chair of the Queensland Theatre Company. It was a well executed characterisation.

Patricia talked a lot about her husband John, who she told anyone who would listen, was too ill to come outside, while others said that John actually died 20 years before. She might have appeared mad, but she was cunning and there was method in her madness as we discovered later.

Her new neighbours were Tom and Gally and their young son Cal, who is even more disturbed than the rest. The family is suffering grief and guilt because the boy Cal slipped away from home at night when there was a blackout and took his little friend Janey to “play with in the water”. Water thieves turned up in an unlit truck and ran the girl down, killing her.

Cal blames himself for this, but Gally blames poor old husband Tom for not noticing the kids were missing. Tom and Gally are returning to live in Gally’s childhood neighbourhood. Gally is a devout conservation and is paranoid about the use of water – she goes berserk when Patricia starts to hose her flowers. I liked Kellie Jones’ performance as Gally. She had a real edge of desperation, guilt and fear. She was very strong. Chris Baz played Tom and was good too as he tried to understand Gally’s problems. He also switched characters nicely to a completely different person as the red-necked rich developer. He has a crazy wife who wanted a swimming pool to fill with the contraband water she had stored in holding tanks.

This was Jessica Veurman-Betts who was in fine form as Berenice, the almost psychotic greedy selfish and childless woman. She also created a vey different character as Nan, back in the flood days. The boy Call was played by Amber-Jade Salas and appeared as an androgynous character on stage. She looked boyish, but never convinced me she was male.

I can never understand why directors cast girls as boys. It is always obvious and never hits the mark. It seems pointless when there are so many young guys who could do the job.

I think the script could do with a bit more work because the characters often came across and two-dimensional but then, maybe that’s what would happen to us if we really did run out of water.

Eric Scott

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