Sam Shepard’s plays are notoriously difficult for both actors and audiences, filled with complex allegory and symbolism, and La Turista is no exception. Ostensibly a chronicle of the experiences of two unpleasant Americans, holed up in Mexico with ‘la turista’ (traveller’s diarrhoea), it’s a vehicle for Shepard’s exploration of the absurdity that characterizes much of modernity in the West. Applekam is a relatively young Adelaide company, and it’s great to see them making brave choices like this in their choice of plays to present. The cast give their all to capturing the bizarre mania in Shepard’s script; several directorial choices, and issues with energy and vocal performance, mean that the show doesn’t reach the potential its company shows.

Salem and Kent are two deeply unlikeable travelers, possessed of a characteristic combination of helplessness and arrogance, who are getting further and further out of their depth in a bleak and incoherent world. As the play proceeds, and their desperation grows, they enlist the help of increasingly weird strangers to purge themselves of their sickness. While, on its face, La Turista is (‘just’) an exploration of Western hubris, some critics have read it as specifically representative of the US experience during the Vietnam war. The play was first performed in 1967, but this metaphorical possibility–particularly given the US’ ongoing engagement in new wars–gives companies a lot of scope to explore its relevance to contemporary experience.

It’s a big challenge to represent absurdity and incoherence in a coherent way, and to create a sense of mania without losing the meaning of a script. In particular, scripts like Shepard’s require nuanced attention to the symbolic possibilities of emotion and dialogue. During the first act, Jeremy Allen (as Kent) and Frances Mehrens (as Salem) work hard to carry the audience through the script’s long, narcissistic monologues. However – perhaps partly because of the venue’s acoustics – both of them move too quickly into high vocal registers and extreme gestures. This means that the subtler meanings and emotional impact of their dialogue, and in some cases the dialogue itself, is lost to the audience.

Accents and monologues also provide a challenge: all actors shift in and out of their American accents at some point in the first act, and the Spanish accents are sometimes unconvincing. Felicity Davies and Lucy Wells’ skilful composition for cello adds to the performance, creating an effective sense of discord and menace, although the volume of the live cello threatens to drown out the dialogue onstage at a few points. The set is sparse, which works well to focus action on centre stage; the transition between the first and second acts takes too long.

The performance lifts in the second act, with each actor settling a little more into their roles and interactions with each other. The (re)entry of Ali Wells and Ben Marwe, as the quack doctor-and-son team ‘treating’ Kent, lifts the energy noticeably: the two spark amusingly off each other, and Wells in particular has a strong onstage presence as well as the vocal modulation and articulation that’s needed to carry the performance to its conclusion. Directors Dave Kameniar and Daniel Appelby’s decisions on blocking sometimes jar; characters are left stranded during others’ monologues or face each other at odd angles across the stage, and the cast seems uncomfortable with the breaks in fourth wall the script requires. Even so, the actors maintain the increasingly frenetic pace, and – with the help of some clever set design – work up to their provocative ‘bang’ at the end of the performance.

Overall, Applekam should be commended for their courage in mounting a complex performance like La Turista. Further development of physical and vocal technique, and a directorial focus on the metaphorical possibilities of action and dialogue, would help to strengthen the performance. Regardless of this, though, the energy the actors bring to the show is strong, and given the relative newness of their company and its willingness to tackle complex material, bodes well for their development over the next few years.

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