Paper Crane at the Maidment Studio

By FRANCIS TILL

There's a lot to like in this one-hour sketch, a first effort from young playwright Rita Stone.

According to the billing, the play - which has had runs at the SiLo and Bats - will be retired after this production. That is a shame: the characters Stone has drawn could sustain the transition into a deeper script that more fully explores themes only probed in this iteration.

Produced by newcomer Legacy Theatre Company, Crane works especially well in its vignetted performance elements, while the thematic scaffolding is sufficient to move the play without straining credulity.

Stone has a fine ear and has produced three distinct characters that are richly realised by Rachel D'Aguiar (Libby), Phil Brown (Simon), and Jarrod Martin (Jamie). The action uses Libby as a pivot and an origami crane fashioned from the paper foil of a hamburger wrapper is the core metaphorical device.

A love triangle of conventional dimensions, a former boyfriend (Jamie) and his replacement (Simon) spar in Libby's mind and eventually in reality. The men appear to stand at opposite ends of the male spectrum but each assumes defining aspects of the other by the time push comes to pummel. This tentativeness of grasp is a consistently interesting current.

Libby is so engagingly presented that much of the play goes by before we see the completeness of her malleability as positioned across the one-eyed nature of her motivation. In many ways, she calls to mind a young Blanche DuBois, but with transformational contemporary undertones.

Of the three characters, she is the most enigmatic of the personality snapshots we are given as events unroll. Libby also translates the metaphoric paper crane for us, so her development, or lack of it, is central to the play. As it stands, the audience is left to provide fill for lines only traced in the script.

Excellent use of lighting and sound helps make this spare set - a bed and two chairs - work well under the author/director's deft hand.