By Amy Hertzog
HIGH EYEBROW ARCH – ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Drama
Both the stage and the theatre are enveloped in darkness. Soft, reflective music is playing. This goes on for so long that I contemplate closing my eyes and enjoying a brief nap.
Suddenly the stage is illuminated in startling yellow light.
Vera (Nancye Hayes) stands in the foyer of her apartment in her dressing gown. Both her posture and her countenance communicate that she is perplexed. Utterly befuddled.
Her grandson, Leo (Shiv Palekar), stands in her living room leaning against, of all things, a bicycle weighed down by luggage. He’s wearing a yellow jacket over a grotty T-shirt and shorts. He looks dishevelled and disoriented.
Photo Credit – STC / Daniel Boud
It’s an ungodly hour and Vera was sound asleep until Leo landed on her doorstep. What is he doing here?
As the story unfolds – with the elegant cadence of a long road-trip – it emerges that both Vera and Leo have their own issues to deal with.
Ninety-one-year-old Vera is lonely. She laments that she’s finding it increasingly difficult to find her words. She and her cranky neighbour speak on the phone each afternoon, to check that they’re still “okay”, but never cross the hall to visit each other.
Leo has ridden his bike from Seattle to NYC. Bit by little bit, we learn that he’s carrying more baggage than that luggage hanging from his bicycle. A difficult relationship with his parents. An odd incident with his (adopted) sister. A dying relationship with his girlfriend. And a tragic loss on the journey from Washington state.
Photo Credit – STC / Daniel Boud
Sometimes endearing. Sometimes conflicting. Sometimes laugh out loud. Vera’s relationship with her grandson is touching and real.
4,000 Miles is a beautiful study of intergenerational love. And how love can bridge the distance between us.
The Set and the Acting
To my eyes, 4,000 Miles provided a splendid example of how set design and acting can interact to create an imaginary world that is authentic.
There’s a step between the foyer and the living room. Every time she negotiates that step, elderly Vera reaches out to the hallway wall to steady herself. This simple detail makes the character real. I can see my own grandmother doing the same thing.
Photo Credit – STC / Daniel Boud
On the left of the stage (from the audience’s perspective), there’s the foyer, with the kitchen behind it and a hallway to Vera’s bedroom at the back of the stage. Vera totters up and down that hallway a dozen times during the hundred-minute story.
Meanwhile, young Leo prances around the apartment with youthful agility as though he owns the place. As the young are prone to do.
What My Eyebrows Told Me
From the moment Vera started chipping her grandson and Leo chipped his grandmother right back, my eyebrows were fixed in a High Arch with the occasional excursion into a Supreme Arch. This was an intriguing story from the moment those stage lights burst into full beam until the stage was enveloped in darkness once more, moments after the sentimental ending.
Photo Credit – STC / Daniel Boud
For more information on Sydney Theatre Company’s production of 4,000 Miles:
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