Black Ice
Pandemonium Theatre | Reviewed by Imogen Neale

THERE ARE three writers behind Pandemonium Theatre’s production Black Ice and at least one of them was once, or perhaps still is, a sociology student. Why? Because the character of the misadventurous adventurer – with her lurid green kayak, farcical safari suit and anthropological ‘just look at all the savages’ phrases, couldn’t have been penned by anyone other than a sociologist. I must admit, given that I have just finished my Sociology MA, I went ahead and had a good chortle at anthropologies expense.

Set amidst the magic and mayhem of a deep winter wonder-world, the story behind Black Ice pivots on the trails and tribulations of two young star-crossed lovers. Cast out of their little, quasi-rural Russia, village by townsfolk who refuse to accept that two people who come from different social backgrounds can fall in love, the pair literally fall (one chooses to jump while the other is pushed) into a new world. An ice world where fish talk, trees dance and a king relentlessly paces back and forth. A world, ultimately, where they hope their love is allowed to bloom. However, as you may have guessed, it’s not that easy and the ‘what happens next’ or ‘what happens instead of happily-ever after’, constitutes up the bulk of the play.

The cast, selected through workshops and classes Pandemonium Theatre conducts in schools and school holiday programs, was given a very ambitious task. For the play, with all its noise, movement, accents and anthropomorphic flora and fauna is tricky. It demands the suspension of reality, the suspension of Narnia-esque comparisons and the suspension of assumptions – namely that loud noises and complicated props are used as a way to amuse, or perhaps divert the attention of, the audience. And whilst some actors rose to the task admirably (the King’s aide, Yagga, played by Moana Johnson from Kaipara College turned in a superb professional performance), I couldn’t help but feel that many of them suffered under the sheer weight and complexity of the plot.

My gripes? Well:

FOR THOSE sitting more than three rows back, all the action (and there was a considerable amount of it) that happened at the front of the stage, was lost to a sea of back-of-heads – all sound, no show.

THE FIRST fifteen, perhaps twenty-five minutes of the performance is so intense as to be unnerving; all the shrieking, running, jumping and rapid fire dialogue leaves the audience looking for a little slice of audio and aesthetic relief. The lover’s desperation, the old woman’s prophesizing, the village people and their scolding – you seem to walk smack bang into the middle of it just as you are taking your seat. That is not to say of course that a play must start slowly, just that if everything is going to happen all at once, the audience needs to know that it has to have its running shoes on.

THE LOVERS are star crossed – yes – but they are young star crossed lovers. Thus, they should approach love as young people have, do and always will; with great confusion, anger, hope, excitement and not an ounce of pragmatic reasoning. The two protagonists here, however, seem like old hands at the game of love won, lost and then won back again – so intense and clean is the course of action they choose.

AND, although I’m going to accused of being too harsh here, the plot is simply too familiar, too fresh. Take one magical world, add kids, love, a hurdle or two, some funny animals, some loud noises and impressive stage dressing and wa-la – you have, well, Narnia. As unfortunate as the theatre companies timing was – the Narnia movie being newly released and all – the play just does not mange to be distinctive or creative enough to be different, to be not Narnia, not Romeo and Juliet, not two more star crossed lovers who manage to overcome diversity, break away from social conventions and change the world with the power of their love (albeit that an anthropologist manages to get eaten along the way).

Thus, while the amateur actors must be commended for their effort and dedication and, as grand as it is to see a theatre company actively trying to foster our future theatrical talent, the story behind Black Ice never picks a diegetic path and sticks to it. Rather, like the character of the anthropological adventurer, it makes a lot of loud, curious noises before becoming helplessly, and forever, lost.