TWO
Image: Brian Meegan and Kate Raison. Photo: Clare Hawley

Jim Cartwright is one of Britain’s most prolific and well-known playwrights, and his play, Two, is one of the most well produced plays across the UK and Europe. Two has been done in several languages all over the world. Cartwright is quite insightful, and a beautiful creator of characters.

The play has been localised with an Australian flavour, set in 1989, in a large rural centre in NSW. Within the walls of a pub we meet the people that drink there, the people that have a community there and the people who run the pub. We gain an insight into their lives.

It’s a very character driven piece. There are 14 different characters. The actors Kate Raison and Brian Meegan, who are married in real life, play seven characters each; we meet the characters, get to know them and gain an insight into what defines them.

“It’s comedy that ranges from absurdist to black comedy and it’s downright just plain funny. The characters are very specific and well-drawn; they are identifiable for the audience. There is a twist, a degree of understanding in certain stories that people won’t get until the end of the play. Things are revealed during the journey,” explained Raison.

“It’s literary and very theatrical but still very human, heartfelt and easy to connect to. It’s like Dylan Thomas but more accessible for the audience,” she added.

Jim Cartwright takes the invisible people in our communities, the people easily passed over at first, because they’re old or perhaps because of intellectual or physical reasons, and gives them a voice. What he’s trying to say is that everyone has a story. They’re ordinary people but we learn ordinary people can be exceptional people.

Until May 6, Various performance times. Ensemble Theatre, 78 McDougall St, Kirribilli. $35-$71+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.ensemble.com.au or Ph: (02) 9929 0644

By Mel Somerville.

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