FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
Author: PAMELA PAYNE
Date: 09/01/1994
Publication: The Sun Herald

DAZZLING DEBUTS 

THAT EYE, THE SKY 

Adapted by Richard Roxburgh and Justin Monjo from Tim Winton's novel. 

Director: Richard Roxburgh. 

The Burning House at the Old Sandstone Church, Darlinghurst. 

* * * 

"IF you look at the sky for long enough, it looks exactly like an eye." Ort (David Wenham), a slow thinking - the result 
of meningitis - 12 year old with a penchant for eavesdropping wants to fathom the unknowable. His observations are not 
complicated by rational thought, or prejudice; he sees visions that seem as real to him as the tangible world. 

Ort - grave, single minded and doggedly loyal - is the pivotal character of this play. Wenham is the lynch pin of this 
performance ensemble. And one of the joys of this production is the quality of ensemble performance that director Richard Roxburgh has achieved. That Eye, The Sky is sharp and vigorous theatre, with performers who are not characters in a particular scene providing sound effects or visual embellishment - manipulating the white silk creek, for example, where Ort and his friend Fat Cherry (Steve Rodgers) sail their rusty raft. 

This is a fine eight member ensemble, at its centre Wenham, and Rachel Szalay as his some-time hippie mother, the 
bewildered, resilient Alice. Susan Prior plays his older sister Tegwyn, all unresolved fury and confused passion and 
Hugo Weaving, a bible touting enigma in a tattered coat who chooses this family, and specifically Ort's comatose, 
severely injured father Sam, as the source of his redemption. 

Roxburgh's staging is simple, well paced and imaginative - actors swing aloft on thick hanging ropes, clamber up ladders, 
move through and over the space in tight, emphatic patterns. And, wrapped in a shawl behind her ancient piano, Celia 
Ireland as Grammar provides an evocative musical context for much of the action. 

This opening of That Eye, The Sky is a premiere extraordinaire: the first performance of a new play - an effective, 
if awkward at times, adaptation of Tim Winton's novel by Richard Roxburgh and Jutine Monjo; the first, impressive, 
foray into direction by actor Richard Roxburgh; and the first work of Sydney's newest theatre company, the Burning 
House. It's a premiere sizzling with excitement and promise.