Ripped from headlines, but play still shocks
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday August 12, 2009
NORM AND AHMED/ SHAFANA AND AUNT SARRINAHSeymour Theatre, August 6Until August 29THE late Alex Buzo's depiction of Anglo-Australian attitudes toward migrants Muslim migrants in particular has lost none of its punch since it was written in 1968. The spate of attacks on overseas students lends Norm and Ahmed a ripped-from-the-headlines feel, but it is the quality of Buzo's dialogue and his canny manipulation of tension that ensures its timelessness.This well-measured production directed by Arne Neeme falls short of electrifying, but Laurence Coy and Craig Meneaud seldom miss a beat in their portrayals of a middle-aged bus-stop loiterer and hapless Pakistani student. Meneaud holds our sympathy as the diffident Ahmed, feeling his way through the cultural minefield that Norm draws him into, and Coy's in-yer-face deployment of physically sometimes sexually ambiguous gestures. The tough-guy handshake, the insistent eye contact are unsettling and funny.The violent climax of their midnight encounter could be delivered with more savagery, but it still shocks.The opportunities afforded to actors in Buzo's play are conspicuously absent in Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah, a newly commissioned companion piece to Norm and Ahmed written by Alana Valentine (Parramatta Girls).Shafana (Sheridan Harbridge) is a young Australian-Afghan woman whose urge to reconnect with the Muslim faith symbolised by the wearing of the hijab is the cause of much consternation for her religiously observant but progressively minded Aunt Sarrinah (Camilla Ah Kin).Both actors work hard to generate suitable levels of anguish while they kick issues back and forth, but Valentine's characters are little more than embodiments of divergent world views, and Neeme's production reflects the stiffness of the writing.
Β© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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