Set Me On Fire, the premiere work of Silent Sky theatre collective, filled the Backdock Arts theatre with a nostalgia for young love, presented as part of Anywhere Festival 2024.
Written by Samara Louise and directed by Cale Dennis, the artistic team behind Silent Sky, Set Me On Fire is an original work about the all-consuming emotionality of being a teenager in love. Rachel McMurray and Mannon Davies starred as Eden and Noah, high school sweethearts who bump into each other five years after their relationship has ended. Eden is running an antique store; Noah is searching for vintage comic books. As they catch up over a cup of tea, the audience is shown their memories and the ways they have chosen their path into adulthood.
As seventeen-year-olds, Eden and Noah navigated jealousy, trust, and the weight of expectations from family and society. Noah’s mother didn’t approve of Eden, and this was an ongoing struggle in their relationship as she asked him to stand up to his family on her behalf. They dreamed of a future together and made promises to each other about how it would be. As time went on, Eden and Noah found themselves divided and wrestling with the dynamics of their relationship and how their families played into that.
The show was well-paced, with scenes from Eden and Noah’s shared past moving through the key points of their relationship. The dialogue occasionally became poetic to the point of feeling unnaturalness, although this may have been mitigated by setting up the convention from the start. The play closed with a poem, and bookending the play with this kind of language may have helped to smooth the transitions.
Rachel McMurray and Mannon Davies both brought a lot of emotion to their performances, and McMurray was particularly expressive.
The unique setup of Backdock Arts saw audiences entering through the front door of Eden’s antique shop to take their seats, passing racks and shelves and cabinets full of interesting objects. The idea that every item in the shop had a story, like the characters, was emphasised in the play. The actors shifted furniture to create the changing settings of Eden and Noah’s memories, although it was unclear why they sat on the floor of the shop, not at the table that was used in later scenes, to drink their cups of tea.
Technical design by Tim James informed the mood of each scene and clearly denoted transitions between memories with shifts in music and lighting. Animations playing on the old television set at the back of the store heightened the sense of unreality and affirmed that the audience was immersed in Eden and Noah’s past with them.
A sweet and sentimental story of first love, Set Me On Fire was a reminder of all the excitement and agony of that time in life, and a polished and well-constructed premiere production from Silent Sky.
Set Me On Fire will be performed from 24 July – 2 August 2024 as part of Anywhere Festival
For ticketing and further information, visit the Anywhere Festival website
Backstreet Brisbane 