Arden V Arden – The Hayloft Project

Overview

Arden V Arden is typical of The Hayloft Project’s approach to making theatre; bold, inventive, and prone to adaptation. In the hands of this company, the little-known Elizabethan work Arden of Faversham finds a strangely compelling resonance in a modern retelling which fractures between updated language and original text. The story is fairly straightforward: an unhappy wife convinces her lover to help kill her husband. Involving other conspirators in their plan only makes things worse, with a series of bungled murders punctuating a work that comfortably straddles tragedy and farce.

Writer and director Benedict Hardie manages to draw on the company’s signature style of heightened naturalism and stark design without relaxing into familiarity. However, it’s an approach that juggles a lot of balls in the air, and not all land smoothly. In particular, the care that’s taken to flesh out each character in a large ensemble cast slows the pace in the first act significantly, even if it allows for some great moments from figures that could otherwise become tangential, especially true for the characters played by Tom Dent and Paul Blenheim.

But it’s these kinds of decisions which make Arden V Arden so enjoyable. In the final scene, for example, James Deeth carries out a final direct address to the audience: a choice that foregrounds the artifice and threatens to completely deflate any satisfying tension. However, it's also evidence of the production's unpredictability, a quality that elevates the show far above a stock standard Shakespearean performance.

Whenever the plot’s plausibility looks set to buckle under the strain of translation from Elizabethan England to modern day Perth, it’s Emily Tomlins’ utter commitment as the wife of Arden that papers over any cracks — especially in the closing stages, where she has to sell her character’s headlong reversal from certainty into unstable remorse.

It's the combination of these individual performances, the cohesion of a talented ensemble, and the effectiveness of an effortlessly cool design that cap off a production filled with rich surprises, and allows Arden's story of betrayal to ring true in 2013.

Unfortunately, Arden V Arden is Hayloft’s final show here before Hardie relocates the company to Sydney, although they're sure to return on tour. The success of this last Melbourne premiere might be a bittersweet reminder of their importance to the city's independent theatre scene, but don’t miss a chance to say farewell.

Image: Sarah Walker.