Nic English, Jeremy Waters, Jennifer Rani and Anna Samson in congratulatory mode. Photo: Phil Erbacher.
Greek tragedy is referenced more than once in Nina Raine’s hugely enjoyable and clever Consent, a play that skewers elements of the justice system as it explores a rape case and the question of what is sexual consent?
In this production at the Seymour Centre, Outhouse director Craig Baldwin’s cast of seven is a brilliant ensemble and each does their character proud, although Jessica Bell absolutely commands the stage as Gayle, who alleges she was raped on the night of her little sister’s funeral. As Gayle’s story develops through the course of the play, Bell’s performance grows stronger and stronger.
But first we meet the other players: Kitty (Anna Samson) and her barrister husband Edward (Nic English) have just welcomed their newborn into the world. Their friends Rachel (Jennifer Rani) and Jake (Jeremy Waters) drop round with congratulations and champagne. Rachel and Jake are also in the law and some unfeeling conversation about their latest cases (‘I’m doing a lot of raping,’ says one as he swills down some champers) flows as freely as the bubbles and gives us immediate insight into their privileged mores. They are all exceedingly smug. Soon thereafter, Tim (Sam O’Sullivan) appears as the prosecuting council in Gayle’s rape case, which his friend Ed will oppose. It soon becomes clear that Gayle, whose background is far from the comfortable middle class existence enjoyed by everyone else in Consent, can’t expect much help from the law. Why is her personal history picked apart when no questions are asked about her attacker’s previous behaviour, she demands? There is no satisfactory answer.
In between all this, friction is building in Jake and Rachel’s marriage. Kitty and Edward must take sides. Or will it all blow over? And does Kitty have cause for complaint? And what is Tim all about? We also meet everyone’s mutual friend Zara (Anna Skellern), a successful actor (rehearsing the part of Medea and worrying that her own biological clock is running too fast for her to have children of her own).
All in all, Raine has created a glorious tangle of relationships and at the same time asks us to think about justice, love and infidelity and questions of consent, within and outside of marriage. And as well as this, her play is often laugh-out-loud funny as it shows up characters’ hypocrisies and insecurities. One example: When Jake (a wonderfully self-pitying performance by Waters) complains that his wife should be ‘someone who’s just going to let you be who you are’, Kitty is quick with the retort: ‘That’s your mother!’
But, with the possible exception of Gayle, none of these characters is without fault. Raine is as ruthless with her dissections as barristers battling for their clients in a courtroom. And we do get some delicious interpretations and examples of just how witnesses are intimidated and manipulated by bewigged lawmen.
Composer Eliza Jean Scott’s suitably jarring soundscape heightens moments of tension in a play that is meant to be unsettling. Don’t miss it.
Consent is at the Seymour Centre until 24 June.
Tickets: From $35-49, plus $6 booking fee
