[2014050] (finger)prints
Chloé Eckert [writer] @ Channel 9 Kevin Crease Studios
4:00pm, Sun 23 Feb 2014
It’s my first time out to this new Fringe space in North Adelaide; established by Alirio Zavarce, the Chapel of Love forms a fundamental part of proceedings – though (despite its apparent popularity) I’m not sure why. There’s a decent bar, food, some beer garden-esque seating, and a small stage… all to support the Chapel and the Kevin Crease Studio, which – in turn – was supported by a pretty decent crowd (for such a big room).
Kev’s Studio is a great location – even with the raked seating, it’s still a very wide and deep space, and I’m assuming that existing lighting rigs make it a little easier on production teams. And, for (finger)prints, the stage is set with the sparse belongings of a group of young adults; walls are indicated on the floor, but the rooms are more clearly defined by their furnishings… this staging seemed like a good use of the width offered by Big Kev.
Opening with an intriguing piece of dance that (unfortunately) seemed to have no real connection to the play it preceded, we’re introduced to a cluster of friends & housemates, suffering the morning after a big night. Max is clearly the worse for wear, with Ollie and Sammi playfully digging at him… but reality soon intervenes: Esther died that night, the victim of a hit-and-run by a drunk driver.
Max is convinced that he was responsible for the crash, though he has no explicit memory of the event; Ollie and Sammi support that premise to his face, but behind his back is another story. Their bickering suggest that they are covering up for their own mistakes, and the waters are muddied by a half-unrequited love triangle – Sammi loves Ollie, but he’s infatuated with the manipulative Esther. Esther herself appears both as a ghost, and in flashback scenes.
It’s a neat plot – certainly aimed at young adults, but appreciable by old fogies such as myself. But some of the dialogue comes across as if it’s pandering to that younger audience: when Max punctuated a profane soliloquy with “fuck, this is fucked,” I almost suspected that a page of Vicious Circles got interleaved with (finger)prints. And whilst Sammi’s character is played with requisite strength by Emma Kew, and Maddy Herd effectively treads the fine line between lovely and loathsome with Esther, the two males are somewhat less convincing.
After last year’s solid Sage, I committed to keeping an eye on Chloé Eckert in the future; and whilst the text of (finger)prints is mostly solid, the direction lets it down mightily. Sure, there’s some nice touches – the staging is clever, allowing conversations to take place in multiple “rooms” at once – but, then again, that just allows the opportunity for the actors to talk over each other. But, ordinariness of the delivery of the play notwithstanding, credit does have to go to the production team for the striking final moments: Esther, backlit at the back of the stage, threw long ethereal shadows out at the audience. That is what I’ll choose to remember from this play.
(50) (finger)prints: Nice idea, painfully (and clumsily) implemented. Nice lighting, though. #ff2014 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 23, 2014