Capricorn | Aidan Rowlingson
Written and directed by Butchulla and Kabi Kabi writer Aidan Rowlingson, Capricorn is a show that explores love in all of its beautiful and messy forms through long-term couple Sam (Sean Dow) and Ally (Jazleen Latrise) as they try to traverse the breakdown of their rapport. This complex untangled from one another plays while the world is battling with the unexpected disappearance of all goldfish from houses, stores and waters, causing the stock market to tumble and citizens to take to the streets.
And the absurdity doesn’t end there. The story is told through the lens of a sassy, quick-witted and stubborn pet goldfish ‘Here Fishy Fishy Fishy’ (Kerri Llewy-Allan) who morphs into a couples’ therapist, urging the broken couple to tell their truths.
The first forty-five minutes of the play was some of the most powerful theatre I’ve seen as Dow and Latrise were engaging in an tennis match of absurd proportions about their inner frustrations with themselves and each other, with Llewy-Allan providing comedic quips to add more bounce. However, the tightness of the writing and the intent of the plot became muddled from that encounter
The interactions between Ally and Sam explored using a pace that felt fabricated to the needs of the plot, but not to the needs of a cohesive experience. An example of this was the tonal whiplash you felt while witnessing a sexual assault scene which—while portrayed beautifully through the Rowlingson and co-director Nadine McDonald-Dowd and the lighting—wasn’t given enough time or weight in the actual script to justify its inclusion, thus coming off as a betrayal of what should have been the show’s defining emotional beat. It made us, the spectators, question why it was included in the plot and whether it was just there for shock value. Some minor plot points, like the death of Ally’s grandmother were circled back to and treated with care and compassion, resulting in an emotional payoff for the audience.
A character loose thread that should have been given more space and work to tie together, was the character of Here Fishy Fishy Fishy. While Lewy-Allen stole the show with his flamboyant and coloural portrayal of the goldfish, wearing exuberant costumes with a range of orange and white colour palettes designed by Delvene Cockatoo-Collins, his character arc fell flat. From the start, Rowlingson positions Here Fishy Fishy Fishy as a figment of Ally’s imagination which is supported by Sam not being able to see or hear the goldfish. Then out-of-nowhere, Sam just starts to hear the goldfish as well, a breaking of the rules that had been established up until that point. A jarring inconsistency that that contributed to the shows’ weaker second half.
A stand out of the show was Peter Keavy’s set design of an open-plan living area overlooked by an enclosed, glass-panelled kitchen, all with a turquoise palette which was so pleasing to the eye. The shades of the green were complimented by the costumes worn by Sam and Ally, creating a mood-board of sorts that would pop up on your tumblr feeds back when tumblr was a thing. It created a gorgeous image of the couples’ home being a metaphorical fishbowl, exemplified when he watched the couple argue in the enclosed kitchen, their voices muffled behind the glass doors.
Wil Hughes’s sound design and Geoff Squires’s lighting designer were pivotal character to Here Fishy Fishy Fishy’s character entrances, transitions and aesthetic. I wish we would have seen more of Waveney Yasso and Jhindu-Pedro Lawrie’s original music integrated in the play as the work that we saw added such levity and breathe to the plot.
Capricorn is a new-work with enormous potential if pacing and character threads are tightened up just that little bit more.
