L-R Emma Colohan and Megan Riordan- Photo by Futoshi Sakauchi
Set in an Alaskan gold prospect town between the mountains and the sea, the backdrop for Goddess of Liberty is a singular and evocative one. Karen Ardiff’s first play is set on the edge of things, on the cusp of changes: a town fading from riches to desperation and desertion; dreams and hopes giving way to harsh reality; lies and truth; life and death.
Maree Kearns’ small but perfectly formed set invokes a frontier shack in a town on the brink of becoming another deserted American dream; Mark Galione’s lighting and Carl Kennedy’s sound design lend a tangible texture.
Geraldine Plunkett plays Frankie, a domineering femme fatale rendered helpless by stroke. To have the main character present and yet so absent is an interesting and effective authorial decision; to have this character be a stroke victim is both brave and singular. It is a credit to Plunkett that she portrays Frankie, who can no longer speak and barely move, with an unerring accuracy and lack of sentimentality. It is no easy task to represent such a character, and Plunkett does an admirable job. A breath of brazen fresh air is Megan Riordan’s Nellie the Pig. Riordan plays the – quite literally – scarlet woman with energetic and unapologetic aplomb.
What Ardiff captures well is the dynamic of three very different women living together, sharing the same small space with each other and all the loves and hates accrued over years. There is a failure to connect though; on some occasions between the characters themselves, and at others between sub-plots and scenes. The play occasionally falls prey to that first-play pothole of over-writing; at points the actors seem to struggle with the language. However, Karen Ardiff’s first play certainly displays enough imagination and ambition to warrant another.
Clara Kumagai
