Review: Commentary at the Dunstan Playhouse

Who gets to tell the story? And, perhaps more importantly, who gets to control it?

That question sits at the heart of Ash Flanders’ Commentary, the latest production from State Theatre Company South Australia, a darkly comic, cleverly constructed work that becomes increasingly uncomfortable as its layers are peeled back.

At its centre is Nick (Gyton Grantley), a once-promising filmmaker turned university lecturer whose controversial debut film Low is being resurrected for a retrospective screening. Made with his former best friend Hamish, the film has long been surrounded by allegations of abuse and exploitation. Now Nick is preparing to record a director’s commentary and appear publicly to discuss the work.

But as the past begins to intrude, so too do the women whose stories have largely been absent from Nick’s version of events; Gen, his former student and lover; Mish, his wife; Saskia, his former muse; and Frankie, whose reappearance threatens to unravel everything.

It is a deliciously loaded premise for Flanders because what better metaphor for controlling a narrative than a director’s commentary?

The structure is deliberately non-linear, contradictory and full of omission and performance. Nick isn’t simply remembering the past. He is editing it. Reframing it. Explaining it. Ultimately, he is attempting to maintain ownership of his version of events.

Director Petra Kalive has described the work as being concerned with who controls the conversation and who has the loudest voice, and whose voices are being silenced. That perspective provides a fascinating key to the production.

Everyone here is performing.

Nick performs innocence, regret, authority and, at times, vulnerability. The women navigate the versions of themselves he has constructed. Memory becomes slippery, truth subjective, and the audience is left constantly questioning whether we are witnessing what actually happened, or simply another version of events someone wants us to accept.

It is clever stuff.

And visually, this production is extraordinary.

Matilda Woodroofe’s set design creates a world that feels simultaneously cinematic and theatrical, while Nic Mollison’s lighting is exceptional. Dan Thorpe’s sound composition, video design and soundscape are perhaps the production’s most potent elements, creating an environment that feels less like a traditional play and more like stepping inside a fragmented memory.

The technical work doesn’t simply sit around the storytelling, it drives it.

Images appear and disappear, shifting our perspective. Sound creates tension before we necessarily understand its source. Lighting isolates, exposes and reframes. Together, these elements continually remind us that what we see is being mediated.

Which is precisely what Commentary is exploring.

The cast, Gyton Grantley as Nick, Anna Steen as Mish/Anna, Kate Cheel as Clea/Saskia, Shardae Santos as Gen/Frankie and Ruby Patrich as Jessica, navigate a deliberately fractured theatrical landscape, moving between reality, memory and performance.

There is solid work across the ensemble, although the performances are not the production’s strongest feature. Grantley gives Nick the charm and discomfort of a man who has become highly practised at explaining himself, while Steen, Cheel, Santos and Patrich each bring definition to the women surrounding his carefully constructed world.

At times, however, there is an emotional distance that makes it difficult to become fully invested in the characters.

Perhaps that is intentional. This is not a conventional character drama designed to make us fall in love with its protagonists or even necessarily empathise with them. We are watching people construct versions of themselves, and the restraint can therefore feel like another layer of the larger interrogation of truth and representation.

Still, there are moments when the emotional stakes could land with greater force.

Flanders’ writing is sharp, with a wickedness to the dialogue and a keen understanding of the contemporary conversations around accountability, cancellation, artistic legacy and public reckoning. He takes these issues and turns them into theatrical ammunition.

Kalive has described Flanders’ writing as cutting through ‘ego, memory, and moral ambiguity’, and that feels like an apt description.

What I particularly enjoyed is that Commentary doesn’t simply ask whether Nick is guilty.

It asks something far more uncomfortable.

Who gets to decide what guilt looks like?

Who controls the archive?

Who gets to tell the story afterwards?

And what happens when those previously relegated to the margins finally get the opportunity to speak?

In an age where reputations can be destroyed, rehabilitated and rewritten at extraordinary speed, Commentary feels very much of its moment. It sits somewhere between theatre, cinema, commentary track and public trial, asking us to consider the stories we consume, and the people given authority over them.

For me, though, it is the craft of this production that makes it memorable.

There is a sophistication to the visual language that elevates the material and gives Kalive’s production a cinematic quality without sacrificing its theatricality.

And ultimately, that feels entirely appropriate.

Because Commentary is a play about the construction of stories.

This production understands that how you tell a story can be just as revealing as the story itself.

4 stars

Lia Loves.