Circa Theatre
March 17-April 21 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Two Brothers had been described in its promotional material as a “powerful”, “provocative” and “thrilling” drama that had generated controversy during its Australian performances. As somebody with more than a casual interest (and involvement) in refugee and immigration issues and relatively unexposed to contemporary mainstream Australian plays, I was looking forward to seeing this play. Unfortunately it failed to live up to its promise on several grounds, and I left feeling disappointed and more than a little annoyed.

The play revolves around the diametrically opposed involvement of two brothers, James “Eggs” Benedict and Tom Benedict, and their respective families, in a political crisis. James is the Minister for Security and soon to be Prime Minister; Tom is a refugee advocate and head of a charitable foundation. The sinking of a boatload of asylum seekers at sea who were endeavouring to get to Australia and the revelation of incidents surrounding this event plunges the brothers and their families into conflict, both political and personal. The relation of the play to recent tragedies and controversies is obvious; in fact it is explicitly outlined in the programme notes. Despite this the play failed to resonate at any more than a superficial level. I thought the reasons for this were two-fold: the play itself is flawed and the position it approaches the issue of refugees seeking asylum from is “politics-light”.

I was disappointed because the play couldn’t seem to make up its mind as to what it wanted to be. The two halves of the play felt like two halves of a completely different play that didn’t reconcile. Perhaps this was intentional, but I felt that issues raised in the first half were dropped in the second. If the play was being billed as a thriller, it failed to thrill. If it was a political play, an exploration of a political issue, then it failed to scrape more than the surface. As a family drama in the second half it was more successful, but character development was uneven; the female characters in particular were thin. These problems were compounded by the staging choices – scene breaks were frequent and abrupt, giving the play a filmic and disjointed quality. The play would have suited a far smaller stage and a more intimate theatre space in which more focus on the arguments of the brothers could have been concentrated, thus heightening the tension and conflict.

I was annoyed because this was a particularly white, middle class, comfortable treatment of the refugee issue. I’m sure some audience members and the co-op themselves probably congratulate themselves for having “engaged” with this issue. Trust me, you haven’t. The exploration of the refugee issue in Australia which dominates the first half of the play is couched firmly in middle class frames of reference: yachting, BBQ’s at the beach house and a perfectly aged bottle of red. Perhaps this is meant to reveal that the concept of a “fair go” is entirely undermined when power and wealth is so unevenly distributed. The refugee character, Hazem Al Ayad (played by James Ashcroft) is literally doomed from the start. But the challenge to the comfortable lives the families of the Benedict brothers live is never complete. Correspondingly there is no challenge to the audience to examine their values and beliefs. There is not a sense of real risk, and therefore no real sense of gain or loss. Particularly cringe-worthy was the generic ethnic music played between scene breaks, possibly in an (unsuccessful) effort to bestow some cultural capital on the play.

On the more positive side, the cast is excellent, with strong performances all round. The cast is comprised of a refreshing mix of very experienced (Roger Oakley, Nick Blake and Jennifer Ludlam) and freshly graduated (Arthur Meek and Martyn Wood) actors. Carol Smith is particularly vicious as the personal secretary/mistress to Eggs. The set design is clever, although occasionally it had a tendency to slow down the action and Jen Lal’s lighting design is typically stunning. However, these elements of the play couldn’t really compensate for the more fundamental problems I had with it. I was astonished to learn that it generated so much controversy in Australia. The production is polished, but ultimately the play doesn’t ring emotionally true or achieve anywhere near the level of impact that it aspires to.

See also:
» Two Brothers (Reviewed by Melody Nixon)