Set locally, a pragmatist meets a dreamer. The attraction is there, but can they sustain a relationship?
That is a key question raised in Skating in the Clouds, which deals with climate change.
Summer (Katrina Mathers) is a Pilates instructor and free spirit. Insecure, she loves to dance.
Scientist Autumn (Rebecca Morton) meets Summer at a salsa class and flirts with her.
Photos by Anna Moloney-Heath
Summer, who is nearing 50, tells Autumn – who is of a similar age – that she is not good at relationships.
Nevertheless, the two get together.
Autumn, who is plagued by the sound of a tap dripping (which Summer doesn’t hear), is driven to help people make better use of the land.
As Summer puts it, Autumn is “on a mission to fix everything”.
Autumn’s fixation with the planet extends to the personal.
She is forever highlighting a sign of skin cancer on Summer’s forearm.
Autumn is feted for jobs at home and abroad.
Summer wants to smell the roses and chill.
She looks to the future, intent on planning their imaginary, joint 70th birthday party in the year 2040.
Summer sees their home turned into an ice rink full of celebrity guests.
In other words, the pair has different world views.
Summer also has an at times troubled relationship with her daughter Toby (Shamita Sivabalan).
It becomes increasingly clear that Toby blames Baby Boomers for the climate crisis.
I appreciated the mix of the personal with the broader context that playwright Clare Mendes brought to Skating in the Clouds.
There is a warmth, humanity and an undercurrent of fear in the script.
The major focus is on the two older women, although several scenes also feature Toby, who also plays a younger iteration of Autumn.
El Kiley fills the role of a climate denier, a younger version of Summer.
For the sake of clarity, I firmly believe both these latter personas should have been fleshed out.
Still, I thought that the 90 minutes the play ran for was a stretch.
The differences and issues between Summer and Autumn were readily established and some of their interchanges became repetitious.
The performances are solid.
I particularly liked the naturalism that Rebecca Morton – large, prop spanner in hand – brought to the fore.
The eye-catching set by Bianca Pardo sees a massive bed (effectively three single beds joined together) dominate the stage.
The impact of the oversized wooden toolbox on a stool to the left of the bed wasn’t lost on me either.
Powered by an all-female cast and crew, director Emily Farrell takes us on a spiritual and pragmatic journey.
It says to me that while relationships can be meaningful and fraught, the world itself is at a tipping point.
Skating in the Clouds is on at Theatre Works until 14th December, 2024.
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