Belleville

Belleville is about love, relationships and how love takes many forms; it can be gentle and tender but also malicious and all consuming. It’s about couples who lie to each other and who build lie upon lie, which becomes the framework that holds their relationship together. Lies and secrets are intertwined throughout this psychological thriller.

A young married couple, Abbey and Zack move from Baltimore, USA, to Belleville, a very bohemian, hip, cool suburb on the outskirts of Paris, a melting pot with lots of different communities, a young demographic, Gen Y neighbourhood. The play takes place inside an apartment block, with their Muslim landlords living downstairs. Zack, a doctor, has adjusted to Paris, but yoga teacher Abbey hasn’t, and their relationship begins to form cracks.

“Amy Herzog is an amazing, multi-award winning playwright,” said Josh Anderson, who plays Zack. “She gives you little pieces of information, in isolation they don’t mean anything, but if you piece them together you start to get the picture and by the end you have this huge realisation and that is the biggest lie or secret revealed. You see the characters offload on each other and a power play that shifts back and forth.”

Belleville is really delicate, but it hits you like a sledgehammer. Herzog handles her characterisation in such a gentle way you don’t realise you are being pulled into this world, and it grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until the end where you have this amazing catharsis,” concluded Anderson. (MS)

Apr 12–May 7, Tues-Sat 7.30pm, Sun 5pm. Old Fitz Theatre, 129 Dowling Street (Cnr Cathedral Street), Woolloomooloo. $28-$38. Tickets & info: oldfitztheatre.com/belleville

 

BY MEL SOMERVILLE

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