Gates of Egypt by Stephen Sewell

Stephen Sewell – I finally got around to seeing Company B’s Gates of Egypt at Belvoir Street Theatre the other night and boy did it piss off my friend. What is Sewell doing? Is he trying to offend his audience into action – to do something about the war, about terrorism? Or is he trying to simply present an observation to us?

For those who haven’t seen it yet it’s about Clarice, a woman in her late 50s (Lynette Curran), who is searching for meaning in her life outside of her privileged, white, middle-class existence. Her husband has passed away, but his ghost is ever-present. Clarice decides to leave, seemingly aimlessly, for Egypt in search of the answers. During one of her adventures into a pharaoh’s tombs she gets kidnapped by terrorists who think she’s American.

The impression it made on one person probably doesn’t matter all that much, yet I think we (or I) often get caught up on wondering what the writer is trying to communicate. Ultimately, a piece of theatre is an organic and contextual art form that serves many purposes: to communicate with the audience; as an expression of the writer; as an expression of a director / set designer / producer etc. Organic because it is a creation of many different artistic components – I mean with a different director it could have been a very different show. Contextual because it speaks to us (the audience) in the context of our own memories, feelings, political stance and fears.

Nevertheless, Sewell is consistently aggressive in the way he delivers messages in his writing, yet I’m starting to change my perspective from seeing his work as being a way of mobilising his audience, in favour of seeing it as a presentation of how he sees a situation – so more of a presentation than an attempt to mobilise.

I didn’t think it was the unpleasant experience that my friend experienced. The set was cleaver and clean, the lighting exceptionally creative and I think Kate Gaul created an aptly, agitated atmosphere that suits Sewell’s writing. The cliché characters that Sewell writes were successfully brought to life with just enough empathy for the audience to hold on to. The costume design was a little worrying in parts with Clarice’s dress doing nothing for Curran’s figure.

Sewell is confronting and frustrating, but he definitely created enough conflict for us to discuss this production of Gates of Egypt well into the night.