Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me

Overview

Three men of different, but easily identified, nationalities walk into a bar and in the space of one sentence demonstrate a well-established stereotype of their culture. Go on, laugh. But, after the punchline, those three men leave the bar, walk their separate ways and are kidnapped by unknowns. When they come to, all three are chained at the feet and abandoned in some hidden, dark prison cell. Perhaps they'll die here. B'dum tish.

Frank McGuinness' Someone Who'll Watch Over Me undermines the countless jokes and cliches by pinning three men to one another in a Lebanese prison cell; cut off from time, their homes and the blessing of privacy, they have only their personalities and imagination to stave off the collapse of sanity. Nikola Amanovic, directing for new company Ion Nibiru, has taken this tough script and worked it into an engaging tour of the fragile components that make up human beings.

All three of the performers — Rod Byrnes (English Michael), James Elliot (American Adam) and Ray Sullivan (Irish Edward) — turn out energised and well-crafted performances, holding the attention of the audience when the course of McGuinness' script delves into absurdism. Especially notable is the ability of these three men to induct the audience into their world, at times transforming passive viewers into observing captors without any theatrical jarring.

Nevena Mrdjenovic's design is both simple and playful. The stage is a rectangle of bright blue surrounded by the black abyss of the PACT floor, and is furnished by two comfortable chairs that would've been fought over in any sharehouse. Under Amanovic's direction, Byrnes, Elliot and Sullivan make great use of these two objects, creating cars, racing horses, a bed and a bar throughout the course of the show. Such a basic stage world successfully brings out the child-like imagination of the three captives, adding a deeper sting of tragedy to their bleak situation.

Confusingly, however, the performers often leave the boundary of their blue rectangle and run into the real corners of the PACT theatre space. This seems to break the illusion of their confinement and masks the reason for having such a clearly demarcated stage space at all. Likewise, the national accents of the three characters occasionally blurred, slipping between regions and even into other countries, which at times became distracting. These though are only two quibbles against an otherwise sophisticated, intriguing and worthy theatrical production.

In their mission statement, Ion Nibiru point at their desire for offering an alternative perspective through both their own stories and existing stories. Someone Who'll Watch Over Me is a successful example of the latter, and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing this company reveal their own stories in the future.

Image by John Ma.