The House of Yes – Little Ones Theatre

Overview

In Theatre Works' final outing for the year, indie darlings Little Ones take on Wendy Macleod’s 1996 The House of Yes under the direction of the company’s leader, Stephen Nicolazzo. On face value, Macleod’s twisted story is perfect fodder for the company: at Thanksgiving, a prodigal son returns to his family’s Washington home to introduce his fiancee to his mother, brother and sister, the latter whom harbours an obsession with the Kennedy family that is only dwarfed by her love for her returning twin. But on the stage, it falls flat.

Besides the strong set and costume design from Eugyeene Teh, that elegantly frames the family’s claustrophobic world in a way that opens it up for the audience, Genevieve Giuffre and Benjamin Rigby turn in standout performances as Jackie O and Marty, the family’s twincestuous brother and sister. The pair's success in capturing the inevitability of their embrace is hugely affecting, even if it’s achieved almost in spite of the surrounding production.

But the effect of the show’s uniformly heightened, "high camp" performance style is somehow curiously flattening. It does allow for some extremely funny comic moments, especially from Josh Price, whose portrayal of the family’s matriarch Mrs Pascal towers over the play like a louche Lurch. But much like the company’s Salome at the Malthouse in 2013 (particularly in the use of music-laden set pieces and transitions) operating at this kind of stylish remove punctures any incipient tension that threatens to board the stage, rather than emphasising by contrast the dark sickness at the heart of the play.

Intuitively, this feels less like Nicolazzo’s direction diminishing the stakes rather than intractable issues with Macleod’s script; one that ripples with devastating, finely-observed one-liners but ultimately comes across like an insubstantial treatment of taboo. Adrift in the nexus between incest, insanity and attraction, it’s certainly interesting, but in ways that don’t actually matter.

Photo: Sarah Walker.