The Dark Room: a play review. 2014.

A motel room is not a room of ones own. More often than not, it is a room of last resorts. Of panic, of desperation, of desolation. It is a crude attempt at civility overshadowed by a suffocating sterility, a fitting analogy perhaps for the themes of this ambitious play. In the Northern Territory, set amongst political, racial and social turbulence, it is a haunted room. Three separate stories connect in it, as six characters enter escaping their own tragedies, each one as personal as it is collective.

Grace, played brilliantly by Jordan Cowan, is brought in by social worker Anni. Grace is at breaking point — she has seen too much cruelty and is holding on to too much pain and betrayal for such a young girl to make sense of. She has responded to the terror inflicted upon her by mirroring it. Yet we soon see that beneath this anger lies a deeper vulnerability. Anni tried to care for her, but the system failed her, and there is a heartbreaking sense of too little, too late.

Director and producer David Mealor pauses Grace’s story to introduce Stephen and Emma. Stephen is a drunk, abrasive cop- Emma an exhausted ex-teacher. Stephen is almost equal parts arrogance and compassion– a product of the complexities, hypocrisies and dichotomies of his position. He is a humanist hiding behind the authoritative cop culture, and like Grace, at times he mimics the violence that surrounds him. Emma wants to leave before it devours her, her husband, their love and the unborn baby she is carrying. She recalls a young boy, his beautiful voice and song and how he angrily called her a “white cunt” before he died in custody. She feels guilty, responsible. Her disillusionment breeds despair, and the room becomes uglier as the final story unfolds, of Craig and Joseph. Grace told us that there was someone in the room as she entered it. She said it with panic, with horror. She was right. It was Joseph. His injustice haunts this room, this room with no views. With the final story, they all come together. Their infinitely different lives and circumstances are all intimately brought together.

Angela Betizen has written an unsettling, powerful story about a world that needs us, that we continue to remove ourselves from. Emma’s disillusionment removes her, for Craig it is his contempt, for others, indifference and apathy. The performances by Flying Penguin Productions are nuanced and compassionate. The use of space, mirrors and timing is tense and captivating. It is important viewing for Australians that know what justice is, and know that it requires more from us than just one room.