Consent – REVIEW
Image: Anna Samson, Jennifer Rani in CONSENT. Image by Phil Erbacher
After huge success at London’s National Theatre and an additional follow up West End run, Consent makes its Australian premiere for a three-week season at the Seymour Centre.
Indeed, discussions and considerations around consent can often be just as complex, intense and multi-layered as Nina Raine’s exceptional and acclaimed play. With consent currently being such a hot topic there is certainly no shortage of material out there around the subject matter, so it’s easy to understand why this play is so popular.
Yet, consent is not the only storyline here. The play could just as easily have been called “Trust” or “Relationships”.
Brought to the Australian stage by the award-winning Outhouse Theatre Co and directed by Craig Baldwin, this excellently scripted production really is a perfect example of quality design and direction.
Visual metaphors are used throughout, with the minimal staging often emphasising these points. Indeed, the backdrop to the whole stage is a mirrored glass partition so the audience often catch glimpses of themselves reflected in the relationships being explored on stage. The powerful (and quite grotesque) courtroom scene suggests that the audience is the judge and jury, directly involved in the on-stage drama, and we are forced to decide where guilt, consent and injustice may (or possibly may not) have taken place.
The play could easily have been called “Lawyers Are Often Really Not Very Nice People”.
The young woman I was sitting next to made me smile, as we chatted during the interval, when she wondered aloud “Why do all the characters sound so pretentious?” which is funny because since the play is set in London the actors were all doing their best to sound British. Although the acting is consistently superb throughout, I – as someone who lived in the UK until their late twenties – will suggest that some of the accents were a little meanderingly imprecise. One attempt at Geordie, for example, sounded comically more Welsh than Northern.
With previous knowledge of the plays subject matter, I purposely brought along my partner for a long-overdue date night, and on the walk home the discussion inspired by the production was both passionate and lively to say the least.
The play could just as easily be called “Just Be Aware, There’s Going To Be Some Deep Conversations As You Walk Your Date Home After This”.
