Leaves of Glass | The X Collective
I, like many, am in possession of a family. And as Jane Austen so neatly expressed every family (at least the interesting ones) have a series of ongoing issues that are left to simmer over periods spanning months, years, and even decades. So, to see a play about the cyclical nature of trauma and a family’s penchant for keeping that trauma neatly collected under antique rugs is always an internally divisive experience. Leaves of Glass is similarly polarising but perhaps not the reasons intended by this production.
Caroline Sparrow. Cover, Sandra Harmon. Images: Naz Mulla
Leaves of Glass tells the story of a family waiting for a new child to come into their lives. It sees their past come back to haunt them as their future makes its way into their grasp.
The cast endures the emotional intensity of Phillip Ridley’s script in a most admirable way. They maintain the energy of the text and keep it engaging despite the numerous, lengthy, and unnecessary blackouts. Caroline Sparrow and Sandra Harman in particular give deeply nuanced performances that ground their scenes in the mundanity that memory plays are known for. Sparrow is the paragon of an outsider looking in, understanding the twisted grinding of the family gears but powerless to do anything. Harman is the perfect perpetrator, serving denial and despair with tea and biscuits in a delightfully sinister fashion.
As it pertains to the direction, when I hear that artist are making moves to shift mediums, I am always happy for them, but it also makes me nervous. Making the journey from writer to director, performer to writer, or any other swap is always very exciting - but it is also difficult. Layer on top of this the journey from screen to stage and a whole new range of needed adjustments present themselves.
Aidan O’Donnell and Nathan Kennedy. Images: Naz Mulla.
As such, I will say that I admire director Wayne McPhee’s ambition in taking on this project and encourage him to keep pushing himself artistically. But in the spirit of not sweeping issues under the rug as this play so encourages, I will admit that I feel Leaves of Glass was too far out his wheelhouse. Several choices ranging from the performances to the production design all speak, at least to me, of a creative who doesn’t quite understand how the theatregoer is able interact with a text and how to communicate emotion and emphasis without a camera being involved.
All-in-all this production has potential, it tells the harrowing story of a family’s self-destruction that Ridley wrote. Sadly, this potential was unable to be fully realised due to the inexperience of its director, but it is a useful case study in the differing requirements for directing for the stage and the screen.
