Guy Van Egmond (he/him)
Having sold-out its development season, Limbo is back for a second run at BATS Theatre. Produced by Keane As and Believable Arts Management, the play drags Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century Inferno down under and into the new millennium. It’s a story that loves classic literature without being pretentious and grounds itself in an incredibly Wellingtonian drama, complete with financial crisis and amateur stand-up.
Limbo takes Dante’s Virgil (Ava O’Brien), spiritual guide through Hell and Purgatory, and pairs them with washed-up comedian David Noble (Ben Lamb), who’s burnt all his bridges to fuel his failing career on stage. Together with two demonic Twins (Sophie Helm; Blake Boston), Virgil forces David to revisit scenes of shame from his life in a bid for repentance to save his soul.
The Stage at BATS is not a particularly large performance space, but Limbo’s production team put together a versatile and flexible stage that did an impressive amount of visual storytelling. Set Designer and Builders Nathan Arnott and Lachlan Oosterman, and Stage Manager Adriana Vascina, evidently chose quality over quantity. Minimal props or set changes were needed to bounce us from a dingy rural pub, to a kid’s birthday party and a personal study drowning in paperwork. Especially impressive is the central set piece: a decrepit train compartment with exposed framework, seats in dire need of first aid, and many glaring tetanus hazards (clearly the Masterton line).
This set production was given life by an impeccable duo of sound and lighting design. Before the lights come up, Roco Moroi Thorn’s railway soundscape paints a rhythmic scene. Then, rippling fluoro lights set the train in motion. The production design only surged from there, setting spines crawling and laughter bubbling in the audience. Aural motifs helped a lot in giving depth to characters, especially Bolton and Helm’s demonic Twins. Their brittle shapeshifting into different people from David’s life was accompanied with the most delicious effects, like a really good session at the chiropractor. There were many other moments in the show—like when Virgil exercises their psychic control to trap David—where the acting, sound and lighting design came together in on-point synchrony. Fantastic.
While those moments were great, I often found the characters to be lacklustre. David was introduced as a protagonist like a soggy tortilla: slimy and limp, with nothing of substance to him. His history is only established as the play progresses; Lamb does his best to give David depth, but it took until the midpoint of the second act—when David is a shivering wreck and rescued from the Twins by Virgil—that I could begin to sympathise with the guy. O’Brien as a dry and deadpan Virgil was the most grounding character, who had their own delightful moments of vulnerability that revealed a deeper humanity and fear.
Credit is also due to Helm and Boston, who play an ensemble of 10 characters between them. Each character was distinct and well-constructed, but I found many of Boston’s to be distractingly loud, with comic bits that wore out quickly. Helm was often more measured and effective in her performance, but also resorted to volume in the demons’ main horror sequence.
The final confrontation between David and his brother (Boston) followed by David’s soliloquy and change of heart, both had the potential to be heart-wrenching. However, the actors once again fell into the trap of using volume for emotion, which became grating to endure. With a bit more restraint, the scene could have soared on quiet bitterness and regret that cut like razors. The scene between David and his brother was also constantly interrupted by a running gag of delivered paperwork, which shattered any emotional tension and almost had one of the actors corpse centre-stage.
Overall, however, there’s a lot to like about Limbo. The cast and crew work really well together and have a clear passion for the show. The production design is fantastic and there are some really talented people working backstage. However, the story could definitely benefit from another onceover with an unflinching pair of scissors to refine the story into the sharp and witty drama it wants to be.