Canberra Reviews

I have no idea how to review something so perfect.

Seriously.

How do you review a show when every single element is really really considered and beautifully executed? When the acting is so out-of-this-world-good that you spend much of the evening wondering where on earth they found these performers? When every design choice, every costume, every moment of live music and every tiny prop is doing exactly what it should? When the precision of the choreography is extraordinary from beginning to end. And finally when the subject is so heart thumpingly important.

The Jungle and the Sea is one of the best pieces of theatre I have ever seen.

It is also a breathtaking celebration of culture, where language becomes more than dialogue. It is memory, identity and resistance. The richness of the cultural heritage reminded me that our languages carry the stories of who we are. Don’t let the three-hour running time put you off. There are two intervals (ginger tea is served in the second one, yum).

I knew foolishly little about the Sri Lankan Civil War before walking into the theatre. Thankfully, neither did the creative team assume I should. The program provides enough context to understand the history without becoming a lecture. I was grateful for that. I went with a friend who was born and raised in Singapore and has Sri Lankan heritage. Throughout the evening, I found myself wondering how much of this story he carries in his cells. How much grief travels through generations without words.

The opening image is simple. A faded blue wall peppered with bullet holes. Children playing cricket.

Immediately you understand the world. Life continues. Kids still play. Families still laugh. Even when violence has become part of the horizon. 

Then a government notice falls from the sky. Everything changes.

Matriarch Anandavalli’s dance at the beginning and again at the end spoke volumes without the need for words. It framed the story with grace and power.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen acting like this. Not one performance. The entire ensemble.

Characters age decades before your eyes. Accents evolve as years are spent in different countries. Bodies change from youthful confidence to the barely bearable weight of survival. Actors shift into multiple characters so seamlessly that you almost stop noticing they’re doing it.

It’s breathtaking.

And then there’s the detail.

The little toy plane that somehow carries an entire family component to Australia. The wall that remains throughout the production until it no longer feels like a wall at all, but a horizon where the blue sky crashes into the brown earth. Covered in bullet holes. As though bullets have rained from the sky itself. The costumes ageing with the characters.

The endless walking.

The searching.

The desperation.

The love.

The way years pass with measured physical vocabulary.

The live musicians deserve their own standing ovation. They aren’t simply accompanying the action. I felt like they were giving the soundtrack of the hearts of the characters. It’s extraordinary and deeply felt.

What also struck me was the generosity of the production. There are no theatrical tricks for the sake of tricks. No cleverness demanding applause. Everything serves the story.

Everything.

After the show, Eamon Flack spoke about how this production couldn’t have been made by any other group of people. I believe him. Co-director Shakthidharan spoke about how these stories need to move beyond telling themselves to their own communities – that in order to truly belong in Australia they must be witnessed by all Australians.

That landed.

Because that’s exactly how I felt sitting there. Like I was being trusted with somebody else’s history. And what a privilege that is.

The evening finished with audience members staying behind to play carrom. My friend taught me the basics. Lovely in theory. Less lovely for my fingernails, which I discovered bruise remarkably easily when you’re enthusiastically flicking the striker. What a beautiful touch. Not because it was an “activity.” Because after spending three hours immersed in Sri Lankan lives, history and culture, the invitation wasn’t to leave.

It was to stay a little longer.

Canberra Theatre Centre should be enormously proud of bringing this production to the nation’s capital. If this is the kind of work we’ll be seeing more of once the new Lyric Theatre is built, we’re in for something very special.

I walked out thinking about mothers.

About memory.

About language.

About walls.

About cricket.

About tiny toy planes.

And tiny Sydney Harbour Bridges.

And mostly, about those actors.

Seriously.

Where did they find them?

Canberra! DO. NOT. MISS. THIS. SHOW.

If you can afford a ticket, cancel whatever you are doing and go see it.