Skin Tight

Based on Denis Glover’s poem The Magpies, Skin Tight follows Elizabeth (Ella Gilbert) and Tom (Arlo Gibson) through the ups and downs, twists and turns of marriage. The play explores their journey with dialogue and movement (Luke Hanna), carrying the beautiful, apt tagline “A muscular piece of poetry”.  

The design elements of this production are exceptional. Brynne Tasker-Poland’s lighting scheme is filled with shadows and highlights a set that looks slick yet rustic, contemporary yet reminiscent of a 20^th century farmhouse. Metal framing looms large and still beckons us in. A bathtub filled with water stands at the heart while buckets of apples overflow in the corners. Lucas Neal’s set design takes my breath away and is somehow practical – apparently, the bathtub even drains!

Music is vital to the whole and Oliver Devlin’s emotive compositions together with Ben Kelly’s sound design punctuate a marriage that is at once passionate and safe, deafening and hushed, whole and teetering on a knife-edge. Hanna’s explosive choreography features moments of stillness, softness, tenderness that further accentuate these juxtapositions, ultimately capturing a marriage through movement.

Director Katherine McRae brings all the moving parts together as one, deftly guiding the actors to navigate such peaks and troughs. Gilbert and Gibson pulsate with chemistry and conviction. While the dialogue is a little too heightened for me, it would be hard to find two more capable or better-cast performers to tell this story. 

What’s special about Skin Tight is that no matter your age, whether you’ve been married or not, if you live on a rural farm or in a steel city, something about the work will hook you. You might find little lines of dialogue that ring true, moments of a relationship that you remember, quirks of a couple you can relate to, or you might just hope you’ll get to experience a love like theirs someday.