Scoop Theatre Review: The December Brother

The December Brother is an ambitious play. It includes two versions of the Bain family murders, a complicated saga of adoption and re-adoption resulting from remarriage and a fictional shotgun marriage of these unlikely partners.

The questions it asks, at length, are: So who are you anyway? Do you really want to know? What if your ancestors turn out to be murderers? What fatal flaws have you inherited and what has nurture added to the mix? Who knows? There are truths you might not want to discover in your genealogical searchings, or in finding birth relatives. It may turn out to be as unwise as a faith in astrology or an obsessive interest in urine test results. What is truth when it comes to families and murders?

The first act is Tim Spite’s own story. It is a complicated story reminiscent of the old song lyric that goes: it seems funny I know, but it really is so, I’m my own grandpa.

The second act shows us the Bain story. It’s not a re-enactment so much as a diagram in action. The floor plan of Every Street house is squared off on the floor. There is some clever lighting in which individual rooms are lit, and the screen at the back provides little details from the trials like that the light switch had blood on it. There are no props, no beds, none of the mess the police cheekily described, the family sleeps and dies on the floor. There are some evocative sound effects, the light switches, the magazine of the rifle being loaded, and the washing machine being switched on.

And the whole Bain action occurs twice. The first time is the story which convicted David , the second time the story that acquitted David. We are none the wiser, we don’t know which is the truth or even whether either of them is the truth. And that is really the point. What is truth? Who is the true mother? Is it the birth mother, or the adoptive mother who worried when you were grazed your knee or were out late. Who is the true David? Who is the true Robin? Whodunnit?

We only know the bits the media have let us know, and they only know the bits the lawyers have let them know, and they only know the bits the police found or have said they found.

The third act links the two stories: finding birth parents, reconciliations, murders, suicides, and the wrongful or proper imprisonment of a son. And we still don’t know who is innocent, who is guilty and who is the real father or the real mother or who really did it.

There are four actors to do all the parts, all the parents, all the children, all the murderers and the murdered. Sometimes this is a little confusing. Most of the time it is very clever characterisation. I don’t know how four actors managed to do all of the six members of the Bain family because from my seat at the side in row x nearly a third of the stage could not be seen. I did hear the grunts of the murderer’s struggle with Steven.

Tim Spite wrote and directed the play with the help of the cast. They help him further by playing the minor characters, Tim Spite’s Auntie Joyce and the gorgeous Hadleigh Walker’s man in Hollywood, amongst the many lesser beings who people the stage, are memorable. Nikki MacDonnell’s sexy visit to the prison is a delicious delight.

It is deep and serious stuff albeit with the odd witty moment. But it does go on a bit. Two full mostly silent versions of the nightmare morning at Every Street is bit much. It's rich material, but a little cutting wouldn’t go amiss.

ENDS

The December Brother - 12 Aug – 11 Sep - Downstage Theatre
From the makers of Paua and Turbine.
Producer: Stuart McKenzie
Director: Tim Spite
Written By: Emma Kinane, Brad McCormick, Nikki McDonnell,
Tim Spite, Tony Spite, Hadleigh Walker
Lighting Design: Jen Lal
Sound Design: Gil Eva Craig
Production Manager: Nathan McKendry
Stage Manager: Sonia Hardie
Coordinator: Colleen McColl

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