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 | Footsteps Bakehouse Theatre Director: Ross Barrett Season closed Although self-proclaimed as an explosive new play about science, 'Footsteps' is neither explosive nor about science. What we have is a rather boring chemist reading the biography of physicist Richard Steiner. Wearied by grieving the recent death of his wife, Liz, Robert Miller's troubled mind conjures a stage life for the inhabitants of the book; his troubled mind hallucinating the conversations. While this was a clever thesis of writer Ross Barrett's - making a fascinating realisation of the inter-relationship between subject, writer, and reader - the experiment never reaches critical mass. Barrett broke Margaret Atwood's three minute rule - if something doesn't happen in the first three minutes, then you are really pushing it uphill. One gets the sense that the action of the play has already happened and is just being talked about. Even the copious equations encompassing the set have already been written - Steiner would have been in the present if he were put to work excitedly scribbling those equations on the walls instead of hiding his face in a tiny notepad. Much of the dialogue was lecturing and grand statements, but an exquisite highlight was the contrast of science and art in describing the beauty in the stars. Consequently, some nice work by Nathaniel Davison and Roger Newcombe looked isolated and played into a black hole. Petra Schulenburg's characters were the only cheery souls in the story and it looked like hard work. I wished that Robert Miller was a speed reader. Our chemist is supposed to have an epiphany about ethics but Miller's ethical position is not provided - except that he seems like a decent guy. His dilemma is contrived and the stakes insufficient as looks a day from retirement. The frequent phone calls to Miller from disembodied business associates were an unpleasant interruption to the Steiner story - but wait a minute, isn't this a play about the chemist? I couldn't quite make the mental leap between Steiner's theory that atomic bombs and curiosity go together like ham and cheese, and Miller's trumped-up environmental issue. Steiner does whatever he wants and damn the torpedoes - this is supposed to influence Miller in a decision about ethics? Steiner dismisses Miller until he follows his conscience, but Steiner makes atomic bombs. I'm confused. There's problems in central casting with actor Michael Baldwin as Robert Miller, and age differences and the accents making it all somewhat bewildering.  | |
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