Last year’s exceptional Knot Theatre production, Bruises, has me anticipating more excellence with this year’s offering: Glass Town. A fledgeling company, Knot Theatre aims to “find new theatre experiences that are not like the traditional trips to the theatre, both utilising modern theatre techniques and experimenting with other mediums of artistic expression.”

The beautifully appointed all-white stylised set, designed by Danni Kellett is promising: an upstage row of building shapes with diverse doors is divided from a more upmarket dwelling downstage by two parallel lines. “Separated by an old covered-up train line that decimated the income,” the programme note tells us, “the townsfolk struggle to make ends meet.” We are not to be treated to a five-door farce, then. The promo blurb is intriguing.

It is a surprise to discover that co-writers Anna Secker and Georgia Kellett have set their “story of a town concealing the secrets which they harbour within their ‘glass’ walls” is set in the USA, somewhere in the mid-west I’m guessing. Maybe the pulling of pistols in the climactic scene provoked that choice.

The story is that a soldier, Evan Walker (Will Toon-Lister) returns home from the Vietnam war and gets into a romantic relationship with Laudie (Molly Wake) the pretty daughter of Miss Belle (Kit Marsh), the classy dame who owns the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ and collects rent from the people who – we are told in a late scene – both worship and hate her. It turns out Evan has an ulterior motive, Miss Belle is hiding a dastardly deed and Laudie is the ham in a toxic sandwich.

A sub-plot is a set up when an Agent (Duncan Macintyre) wants to buy out Miss Belle to clear the way for luxury development but she won’t have it and the price of his going away is $3m. There is a rent-collecting scene but I’m unable to comprehend the economic elements that make this plot line credible and it seems to dissipate anyway.  

A range of 15 other characters are played or portrayed by Macintyre, Maea Shepherd, Thomas Laybourn and Mia Alonso-Green. A Priest and a Cowgirl are in lust with each other. Two Fisherman lug lightweight sacks that are supposed to be full of potatoes. There’s a mayor, a Sherriff, a Publican, a portentous spiritual woman …

A lot of the action is highly stylised, non-verbal and impressively done, in itself. The dialogue is delivered with thick US accents, some of the lines fade away at the ends of sentences and sometimes the cinematic musical soundtrack drowns words or phrases. The programme acknowledges ‘Universal Music Rights’ and was composed, I suspect, for epic westerns.

Apart from the set-piece dance sequences, the script is underdeveloped, and its many conventions are not well integrated. I find myself preoccupied with trying to keep track of the story, which is a low level of engagement. There is no point of empathy (such as we experienced in Bruises), no mystery to solve (the betrayals are all revealed in one go), and no tension or suspense except at the very end.

Beyond the two-dimensional ‘play acting’ and parading of cultural clichés, it’s hard to perceive any purpose to Glass Town other than the opportunity to witness a display of physical theatre, show-biz dance and design skills for their own sakes. It provokes whoops of support from friends in the audience but leaves me sad that so much energy has been devoted to something so shallow.

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