The Return
Fresh Track Productions @ Queen’s Theatre
12:30pm, Thu 28 Feb 2002
Score: 7
Short Review: Gritty
“Oh no,” thought I, as I approached the wonderful Queen’s Theatre and saw nothing but a sea of school uniforms, “not another school production.” Luckily this was not the case – even though local production company Fresh Track had only 5 weeks preperation on the piece, “The Return” was a good, solid piece of theatre.
Focussing on the low socio-economic suburban hell of 5 characters riding a train to Fremantle one night, there’s a few little twists and turns in the plot (but certainly not enough to warrant the incessant “oooh”s and “oh my god!”s of the schoolie audience). Characters are introduced as cliches, developed into non-sterotypes, and then radically revealed to be something they are not…
The production was uniformly good. There was excellent live guitar backing, and the skeleton shell of the train the characters ride in fit with the overall deconstructive nature of the show. Alistair Scott-Young is stunning as lead thug Steve, all the more surprising given that he’s only been acting three years. Melanie Vallejo is merely adequate, however, due to the lack of strength in her voice.
I felt let down that some of the characters were just… unbelievable, especially in their “stereotype” phases. Overall, however, I thought this was a worthwhile piece of drama. This feeling was only strengthened after attending the Q&A session held after the play – both cast and crew proved both frank and approachable. Stories about character work in Salisbury were amusing as hell.