Thrilling cocktail of intrigue
Switzerland By Joanna Murray-Smith, directed by Susan Wilson Circa Theatre, until April 14
When a fiction writer becomes so obsessed with her characters that fiction and reality become blurred for her and when these characters are psychologically twisted in macabre situations, then a real cocktail of intrigue and mystery is created, which Joanna MurraySmith has created in her play Switzerland about the later life of writer Patricia Highsmith.
Well-known author of such works as Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley, Highsmith was a curmudgeonly character for most of her life, an alcoholic, repressed lesbian and racist among other things. She also had a penchant for collecting murder weapons.
Her writing was in the genre of psychological thriller which Murray-Smith has expertly used in her play with short sharp, biting lines between the characters as the cut and thrust of the word play unfolds on stage.
The opening premise is that Highsmith (Catherine Downes), living as a recluse in Switzerland, has come to a hiatus in her writing and her publisher has sent an emissary, Edward Ridgeway (Simon Leary) to get her to sign a contract for one last Ripley novel.
To explain any more however and to describe where the play goes or ends up would be to take away its impact. But what happens at the end is far from what is predicted at the beginning.
On a stark minimalist set, designed by Tony De Goldi, the story is played out with much heightened tension and dramatic moments.
It is a wordy play, essentially a talkfest between two characters, but when the words are as good as Murray-Smith’s and delivered with such energy by Downes and Leary under Susan Wilson’s astute direction it works a treat.
The acerbic nature of Highsmith’s intellect, yet with an underlying vulnerability that any minute her world will come crashing down around her, is beautifully portrayed by Downes, while Leary expertly captures the initial nerdy, awkwardness of the self-effacing Ridgeway that becomes anything but at the end.
As the play moves to its dramatic climax, the audience can’t help but be drawn into the lives of these two characters.This is a great piece of entertaining theatre. – Ewen Coleman