Australian playwright Steven Snell writes: "When I was a teenager, still in High School, a couple of guys I knew got involved in a brawl at a party, during which another kid was killed, and they had to go on the run…this was the inspiration for the story – it wasn’t until about 15 years later that I actually started writing the play…it was haunting me all that time." 

Director Andy Saker writes: "This production of Keeper is the play’s premiere outside of Australia. Keeper is essentially a dialogue-driven kitchen-sink drama. The ‘pressure cooker’, the relationship between the characters in it’s stark setting, the fact that the play is all performed within one act, adds to the desperate, claustrophobic atmosphere that Steven Snell achieves with the economy of his writing. These are all elements of a play which I personally enjoy as an audience member. I hope you enjoy it too."

Keeper unfolds in a smoko room: walls roughly painted in a discount green patina. It gives the ambience of a prison waiting room and serves the setting of an industrial tea room well.

The lull of music playing, composed by Audiovisual artist Jed Town, is emotive and unsettling: the perfect soundtrack for this stark and battered room and the volatility about to brew.

Centre stage a hardy fold out table is flanked by greasy, work stained plastic chairs. Aside from the shock of red the Formica sink-top lends to the setting, the room is devoid of ‘happy colours’, bar a scantily clad beauty adorning the month of March on the calendar above the sink. Catering sized condiments dot the sink-top, a handleless fridge and past-its-use-by-date microwave share space alongside. Two primer-dulled doors break the measure of the room. Severe fluorescents flush the space with magnifying brightness. 

Enter Russel, Kevin and Neil in a swearing flecked argument. As the din of their yelling mellows, we are methodically introduced to them as they dissect events, past and present …  

Naive and panicked, Kevin (Peter Coates) and Neil (Tom Easden) are desperate to escape the consequences of a violent party brawl they have witnessed, in which a person was killed.

Unfortunately Coates and Easden’s accents waver between a hybrid of Australian and working class Pom. To their credit though, they do complement each other as an ‘odd couple’; Neil’s dominant ‘leader’ to Kevin’s submissive ‘follower’.

The pair seek help by way of Russel (Rob Owens). Street-smart and quick-thinking, he is Kevin’s trouble-prone older brother; an ex-con trying to live on the correct side of the law. The smoko room is in Russel’s workplace, a sheetmetal factory, and this is where the secrets unfold under a volley of self preserving threats, calculated questions and shredded loyalties.

The accent flaw visits Russel’s character frequently, diminishing the impact of his cutting one-liners. Nonetheless we, the audience are not immune to his caustic, street poet sense of ‘description’.

Angst makes this play its home. The brothers are dual ‘keepers’ of each other. Kevin recalls a childhood of dealing with the reverberating stigma of his brother’s actions; the weighty and resonating effect Russel’s lawbreaking has had on his family, the toll it has had on their Mother.

Russel, the reformed older brother, is now facing the mirrored example he set for his then 10yr old little brother, now sharply reflected in the adult Kevin’s choices.

The characters’ arguing is confronting and loud, but the volume has no startling bite to it. There is stressed intensity in Owens and Coates body language, yet none in their vocals. It will be a powerful performance once Owens, Coates and Easden unleash the emotive ‘scare’ that their male shouts can evoke.

Neil, their childhood friend and acquaintance, is a manipulative survivor. He does not hesitate to feign innocence in the role he has played in this night’s violent events. To avoid the impending promise of jail he lays Russel’s criminal past on the table and uses it to his advantage.

Easden speaks and yells effusively, but has yet to communicate the cornered, desperate vibe characteristic of a sneaky, egocentric manipulator. I assume his character will develop confidence as the season progresses.

The fearful Kevin and Neil’s panicked justifications for running heighten Russel’s suspicion. He systematically dissolves the veil of untruth around the night’s events, utilising his brotherly ‘tact and wisdom’ to reveal the darker truths that threaten their collective futures.

This is Devonport Theatre Company’s first production at The Pumphouse. The gritty energy required to simmer the story along can only, I surmise, require demanding mental and physical stamina. Commendations to the cast and artistic team. 
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