Review: Heir at The Meat Markets
Review by Greg Gorton
This show has explicit references and portrayals of violence against women, child abuse, and mental distress. This review references these things often..
Heir is an edge-of-your-seat play, bolstered by the best acting you will see at Melbourne Fringe this year. It is a confronting play, with strong references to domestic violence, violent misogyny, suicide, and child abuse; these dark themes are explored with a nuance, sensitivity, and empathy rarely seen on stage, while still being challenging to all audiences.
It is a play about a mentally distraught (and possibly unhinged) young man called Hugo coming to the office of a pregnant therapist, Edie, and the tensions that sharply arise when she decides to stay and try to help him out. As the tale twists and turns, it is clear that things are far worse for both of them than we could ever have guessed.
Heir is the brainchild of Candice D’Arcy, and (at least if I’m reading the programme correctly), her primary thesis is that we need to talk more about domestic violence, stop treating perpetrators as “rare anomalies" and that by treating them as human, we can recognise that there is a point in other human lives where we can stop them from following the same path. The script itself does a good job at presenting this thesis, while carefully avoiding the trap of offering excuses for offenders.
There are clear character voices in the script, though some of Hugo’s lines feel too abruptly like a stolen Reddit comment than a motivated conversational moment. The strength of the writing comes more from the tension created between the characters and how that is ratcheted up through the night. While some scenes in the second half of the night come across as a little “clever”, and needless plot complications veer close to arguments I do not believe the writer wanted to make, these are almost entirely overshadowed by the performances themselves.
Because it is in the performances that we find a production that may well end up being one of the most talked about shows this year.
Aaron Wilson plays Hugo, a teenage boy with a very troubled past, a bandaged hand, and a very aggressive presentation. The ambiguous performance of the first few minutes of this show left me in awe of how well either interpretation of his behaviour could be read by any reasonable audience member. As it progresses, we see Hugo regress without stereotypical “childlike” behaviour, and we see the many layers of lies he could tell, all through an incredible physical vocal performance. Hugo could easily be played poorly as either screaming or crying, but the range the man we see on stage goes through was something to see.
Like Wilson with Hugo, Veronica Thomas’ performance as Edie really takes the script to a new level. In the script Edie is portrayed as a woman used to dealing with “at risk youth”, and admits that almost all her clients are boys. She’s a mother, and she isn’t easily put off. But she is also human, and the reality of the world dictates that only an insane person would be in that room, with that boy, and not feel a little concerned about personal safety. Thomas’ portrayal of this is sometimes baffling; almost microscopic changes in body-language and expression were conveying so many levels of confidence, anger, and fear, often in very different combinations.
Under the direction of Blake Barnard and Clarisse Bonello, the tension between the pair is presented in a fluid and authentic production. This isn’t a play of two people sitting on chairs, or playing an invisible tug of war. While Wilson’s Hugo never sits the same way twice, Thomas never sits in any other way than would make a pregnant comfortable (except the one important time she does). While the stage is set with the cardboard boxes of a person moving office, there are no cliched “pushed up against the wall”, or melodramatic “throw everything around” moments. This is an intense, almost Pinteresque, thriller, but with much more serious things to say. If D’Arcy had words to say, then Thomas and Wilson have given it a voice that’s intonation and inflections offer even more meaning.
While there is nothing explicitly wrong with the lighting design of this show, it’s a regular internal struggle for me to appreciate when anything stops me from paying attention to something that is brilliant. That is, by having to note a lighting change I, for a second, am not entirely devoted to the performance. Likewise, while I accept the narrative need for the sound effect of the phone, the sound from the speaker will always break immersion. The greatest sin this play commits is reminding me it’s a play.
Heir is, I’m saying it again, an intense theatrical experience. There is no point that I would have been surprised if either character brought out a knife and stabbed the other in the throat, and only a few in which I would have been surprised if they didn’t fall into a crying embrace. There’s a brilliance that both of those things could be happening at once.
In the time you will have taken to watch Heir, six women across the globe will have died at the hands of a family member. This is vital information to hold onto before the show, after the show, and until that number drops to zero. The selfless creators of the show are giving a portion of the tickets to Safe Steps Family Violence Crisis Support. If you can do so, give a little as well.
