[2013079] Agnes of God
Blue Fruit Theatre Company @ Holden Street Theatres – The Arch
4:00pm, Sat 2 Mar 2013
Itsoseng runs late, so it’s a mad dash to the tram stop, followed by a brisk walk to Holden Street. It’s also a bit of a sticky day, so I’m not entirely comfortable when settling into my front-row seat in The Arch.
Personal discomforts are forgotten when Agnes of God kicks off, however. A local adaptation of the Broadway play, it is a multilayered story centred on the “immaculate conception” of the titular Sister Agnes, a Novice nun whose steadfast belief in the beauty of the Almighty’s Creation is corralled by the abuse she suffered as a child. Simplistic and naïve, Agnes is convinced that the baby she carries was conceived by God alone; Dr Martha Livingstone, a psychiatrist concerned for Agnes’ wellbeing, sceptically prods for a more plausible reason for her pregnancy. Agnes’ Mother Superior, Miriam, tries to deflect any claims of impropriety, and defends the integrity of the Novice in her care, whilst constantly balancing her belief in miracles and the almost irrefutable proof that Agnes’ baby is not what she so desperately wants it to be.
The play flits scenes between scenes of the three women: Martha prying Agnes for the truth, Miriam challenging Martha’s lack of faith, and Agnes assuring Miriam of her righteousness. A large amount of the script is delivered through flashbacks (triggered by a character stepping into a spotlight), and it is loaded with threads of connections between the three women – the psychiatrist’s sister, Agnes’ mother, and Mother Superior’s sister all being named Maria was one overt example – and the use of metaphor is also less-than-subtle.
Michaela Burger’s role as Agnes is epitomised by two things: her angelic singing, imbuing Agnes with a sense of purity, is contrasted by her bone-cutting screams, which typically occur when Martha’s questioning starts insinuating that all is not as it seems. But whilst the first scream comes as a shock, their regularity makes the performance feel almost one-paced and predictable… one can almost plot a sawtooth graph of tension.
That’s not to say that Agnes of God is not good; it’s a meaty theatrical piece, with all three performers handling their roles well. But the predictability of the delivery detracts from the subject matter at hand, and unfortunately stops this production from reaching greater heights.
(79) Agnes of God: faith vs science with an overload of metaphors. Angelic singing, though! #ff2013 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) March 2, 2013