Double Indemnity, MTC, Playhouse Theatre, Wednesday June 29th 2016

Double Indemnity, MTC, Playhouse Theatre, Wednesday June 29th 2016

"Double Indemnity" written by Tom Holloway and adapted from the book by James M Cain was presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company at the Playhouse Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne on Wednesday June 29th 2016.

For those new to my blog I write about the holistic experience of attending the theatre. I buy my own tickets. So if you want a re-telling of the story please refer to the links for further information or for further insights.  Note, that I may provide different links for repeated main words or phrases.  I write for my memories of what I have seen, and is more of a stream of consciousness.

"Double Indemnity"  is a great night of entertainment and should tour internationally with its superbly clever three revolving stages that create so many wonderful scenes.  The best part of the scenery is that it lives and is as much an actor as the rest of the cast.  This revolving set also allows for the most incredible transitions between places and actors by having one actor starting a scene before the next ends.  I thought this device was used intelligently and flowed beautifully to seamlessly move us into a new scene, whilst maintaining tension from the previous scene.

The acting by the cast paid homage to the film-noir genre without being hammy or over-acted.  Though some of the accents did drop at times and the intonation was more Australian rather than the driven American intonation.

The ending was a bit of a disappointment but after research was more in keeping with the non-specific ending of the book.  In hindsight our discussion as per many others leaving the theatre outlined the many possible endings within the context shown.

Costumes were magnificently rich and created the genre of "how was it done?" or "how did they or will they get away with the murder?"

Overall this production deserved a 8/10.