Subdued Reactions

Sun Herald

Sunday June 21, 1998

by Pamela Payne

Fables from the alchemist's enclave produce just a little gold

Blinded By The Sun

Playhouse, Sydney Opera House

STEPHEN Poliakoff sets his play in the chemistry school of a minor English university. But he pushes his story right to the boundaries of probability. Surprising things happen in this university. A professor (Ron Graham), for example, decides to retire and chooses as his successor the scientist least likely to succeed (Peter Kowitz). No outraged howls from senior staff members, no formal appeals, no glinting of academic knives. Then there's Elinor (Lorraine Bayly), who for 25 years has worked alone in her large laboratory, refusing to tell anyone the nature or progress of her experiments.

Poliakoff tilts this world ever so slightly off balance. But this Ensemble Theatre production (director, Sandra Bates) plays it straight, with awful earnestness. For most of the actors, the dogged pursuit of realism results in stilted characters who never seem entirely sure about why they're there or what they are doing. Attitude serves as character. Having established a pervading attitude on their initial entrance, most of these actors merely play it, and replay it - Lorraine Bayly's hearty, no-nonsense speech, for example; Andrew McFarlane's implacable smile; Tina Bursill's fraught and brittle look.

At least Kowitz, as storyteller and central character, seems to spot the glimmer of a joke. He brings an irreverent swagger to Al, the unlikely professor, the prolific author of books debunking serious science. On opening night, though, the only actor who timed her line and got a laugh was newcomer Kate Fischer as an enthusiastic young research scientist.

Blinded By The Sun targets the most complacent and smug academia. At the same time it hits out at flashy notions of economic rationalism, of marketplace research and education. It's a quixotic play that is neither conventional nor ordinary. But, on John Senczuk's ponderous stage, it is never more than worthy and well-intentioned. These are admirable qualities, but they don't produce riveting theatre.