Review: Stoning Mary

Review: Stoning Mary
Griffin Stablemates


There's a point in Stoning Mary when the penny drops and you suddenly feel like there's a big elephant in the room that no one really wants to talk about.

Petrol prices, the cost of bread and public transport demand our attention leaving little time to consider the very real tragedy unfolding just the other side of the Indian ocean.

And for playwright Debbie Tucker Green the elephant is Africa and it's about time we
started looking at it square in the eye.

Thirteen actors stand, framing the wall of the small Griffin Theatre like a police line-up waiting for some interrogation. And in some ways, it is an interrogation but it isn't the characters who are the focus of attention, but rather the audience passively looking on.

Tucker Green has taken everyday media stories reported from one of the most ignored corners of the world and forcefully asks the question, what if this was happening to people like you. It could be contrived, but Stoning Mary is one of the most confronting nights to be had in the theatre this year.

The playwright gives a strict instruction for the director "All characters are
white". It seems almost medieval as you watch the play unfold, until that is, that big elephant starts to stir and the obviousness of it glares at you.

One by one the stories play out - a couple are both suffering from AIDS and have to decide who receives the one prescription they have between them. A child soldier comes back to his parents on the home front. A young woman faces a public stoning after a revenge killing.

With great performances from a cast that in some cases could be a little too young for the roles, this is a poignant and harrowing piece of theatre intricately directed by Lee Lewis.

The lighting and costume design from Luiz Pampolha and Alice Babidge is also delicately appropriate but it is Yael Stone's remarkable performance as the young woman facing execution that is the real trophy of this production. It is worth seeing just for her.


Until 21 June
$22-29 MCA Ticketing 1300 306 776
SBW Stables Theatre
10 Nimrod Street Kings Cross