For Georgie at the SiLo Theatre

Reviewed by FRANCIS TILL

Kathryn van Beek's examination of suicide and sisterhood, For Georgie, contains a promising and dark little play that doesn't quite emerge in this production.

The work we are given instead does have appeal but will be of greatest interest to observers of Van Beek's learning curve, as she establishes herself through fringe productions as among the most promising young writers in New Zealand theatre.

For Georgie reworks well-sounded themes that will be familiar to devotees of J.D. Salinger's Glass family, and Van Beek uses them to both continue her experiments with form and to demonstrate her superb ear for dialogue and comedy.

In outline, the story follows younger sister Georgie (Pia Midgley) as she explores the life and hidden aspects of older sister Tess (Van Beek) and her unexpected suicide.

Georgie is gradually consumed by the life she is examining in a process tracked through monologues and stylised recollections.

Van Beek appears only through a videotaped suicide note, for Georgie, until she undertakes an unfortunate cameo walk-on as a ghost in the final moments.

It's unfortunate because the final moments make explicit what has been left nicely implicit throughout: don't commit suicide.

That cameo - and Georgie's abrupt, unconvincing shift into life-affirming mode - follows a chilling, far more interesting sequence in which Georgie appears almost hypnotically drawn into duplicating her sister's suicide.

In the end, the suicide remains an impenetrable act - and credit to Van Beek for leaving it so.

Interestingly, the dead sister appears far more vivacious than her living sibling, in dress and legend if not demeanour, which contributes nicely to Georgie's confusion.

Structurally, there are too many devices and context shifts, but the sibling relationship is nicely treated and both parts of it are performed with reasonable deftness by Midgley.

Natalie Hitchcock's direction could be crisper: there is muddiness in transitions that detracts from the flow.

And the SiLo must eventually focus on technical issues like the distracting feedback buzz and uneven amplification that added such an unwelcome dimension to the opening night.