Review: Strangers in Between

The latest production at North Fitzroy's Store Room Theatre is a play which director Ben Packer has been trying to stage locally ever since he saw the original production at Sydney's Griffin Theatre in 2005.

Written by Tommy Murphy, (best known for his beautiful adaptation of Timothy Conigrave's memoir Holding the Man) Strangers in Between is the story of 16 year-old Shane (Aljin Abella), who has run away from Goulbourn in country NSW after being sprung in flagrante delicto with another boy by his violent older brother, Ben (Cameron Moore). But the play is much less about the fallout of that moment than it is about growing up, about how we construct new families for ourselves from the people around us, and about fear, friendship and love.

Shortly after ending up in Sydney's notorious Kings Cross, Shane starts work at a bottle shop where he meets, in rapid succession, a handsome boy named Will (also played by Cameron Moore) and the considerably older Peter (a superb performance by local theatre stalwart Bruce Kerr). Each becomes a key figure in Shane's life as the play unfolds over its approximately 90 minute running time.

Fast-paced, frank and very, very funny - although at times also deeply moving - Strangers in Between beautifully showcases Murphy's excellent ear for dialogue and his grasp of the vernacular, as well as his ability to deftly juxtapose tragedy and comedy without emphasising or detracting from either.

One of the play's best rendered scenes is a delightful piece of dialogue between Shane and Peter at their second meeting that manages to be both charmingly flirtatious and delightfully naïve; while later in the piece Murphy allows humour to shine through in a hilarious sex scene that nonetheless perfectly encapsulates Shane's voluble energy, as well as his adolescent fears.

Fear is at the heart of the play - Shane's fear of his brother's violence, and of his own sexuality; as well as fear from another incident in his and his brother's past that plays out late in the play's narrative. But while this nervous thread runs through the work, so too do love and tenderness, and an awareness of the importance of friends and the family we make of our friends in those important years after we have moved out of home. The play's final scene encapsulates this beautifully, both in the way it is written and the way it is staged in this memorable and excellent production.

The stark and simple set design by Micka Agosta (who also designed Holding the Man) captures perfectly the neon-lit world of Kings Cross which the characters inhabit; while Packer's direction is confident and assured. In light of recent discussions in the Melbourne theatre scene about colour-blind casting, it is also heartening to see this practise played out in Strangers in Between.

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Store Room Theatre's interim Advisory Board.