CUT

This noir thriller premiered at the Adelaide Fringe earlier this year. Its dark storytelling and performance by Hannah Norris undoubtedly strike chords, but as a play, CUT is so intent on shocking its own audience, it ends up compromising on genuine emotion.

Norris, playing an unnamed 'Woman', is first a flight attendant pursued by a male passenger. The same minimal set that forms the aircraft cabin turns into a train (with the Woman still pursued by the figure) and later, her own home. Plunging in and out of darkness, the audience career about the place with the Woman as she's stalked and, finally, driven to violence.

But Norris, whose gasps and shrieks are ten-a-penny, never rewards us with any sense of horror on stage. The darkness we're plunged into feels more threatening than Woman's constant crying wolf, whether on a plane, train or in the depths of an empty home. Eventually the villian shows up—kind of—and we are relieved of him over the course of a few brutal phases – though the meatiest parts are left offstage. Though Norris's performance is strong, Woman never feels truly at threat – Duncan Graham's writing is far too thin to allow for real people, or real feelings. The irony is there is little more to the Woman or her situation than there is to the flight attendant she parodies: if their smiles aren't real then her pursuer definitely isn't either.