Sydney Reviews

A large brutalist chandelier structure, like an unidentified flying object, hovers over a circular stage. It illuminates, pulsating in flickering light, emphasising the allusion of some extraterrestrial interplanetary vehicle.

A figure enters, orbiting the circumference of the space until finally ascending the stage. Could he be an occupant set down from the space craft despite his appearance of a white male homo sapiens dressed in comfy, casual, yet conservative clothes?

His first utterance is an accusation, calling Cassie Logart dishonest.

Logart is an anti-uranium activist and she and he have been at loggerheads for decades. For he, as he eventually reveals, is a qualified nuclear engineer, Gabriel Hulst, who has studied the biological effects of radiation.

Biological effects and radiation run in ironic paradigm throughout Alana Valentine’s new play, Nucleus, a fusion of public debate and private intercourse.

The maligned Cassie materialises and the thrust and parry of their relationship ensues. Their personalities and beliefs buzzing about like so many neutrons and protons, colliding and exploding, causing intellectual, emotional and physical fission.

Inspired by the truth of history and extensive research, Valentine, virtuoso of the verbatim, has fashioned a fictional narrative, a distinguished dialogue of mature discussion on divisive political and personal issues.

The performances are finely calibrated and nuanced. Peter Kowitz as the pro nuclear Hulst, steadfastly persuasive on the viability of nuclear power, resolutely convinced that it has a future in a climatically challenged world, is wonderfully natural in his delivery of facts and figures and the expression of his bafflement towards his antithetical attraction to Cassie, a definite frisson.

In contrast, Paula Arundell ionises the lionised Cassie, injecting a palpable positive charge of theatricality to the performance, earthy, passionate, beguiling. The sparky sparring between the couple augmenting the argument and consolidating their opposites attraction.

Crisply directed by Andrea James, with simple but stunning design by Isabel Hudson, and similarly inspired lighting by Verity Hampson, Nucleus provides a very rich vein of enjoyment and engagement, running the gamut of gamma and Gaia.