The List *** Consummate performances from Leof Kingsford-Smith and Lucy Miller
Unit 46, Edinburgh Fringe, 2009 U.K. critics give Unit 46 the star treatment. Most critics covering the Festival have given the Australian play and its DIY company a four-star rating, with high praise for the script, the acting and the directing. What's on Stage summed it all up with ... "A cleverly staged and entertaining play about two sad and angry characters living on top of each other in an apartment complex. Very tight and skillful direction from Andrew Doyle and outstanding performances from Leof Kingsford-Smith and Lucy Miller. This is a fine production from a great new Aussie company and is highly recommended." Giving the play a four-star rating in her AussieTheatre.com column leading reviewer Skye Crawford said: "The blunt honesty of Unit 46 and the fearlessness of the performers, give it weight and credibility as a solid piece of dramatic theatre. The set is realistic and allows the concept of the plot to be fully realized." Rating the production 4/5 Three Weeks, a specialist Festival publication, observed: "The performances are engaging from the outset, each one fantastically well observed and appealing in its own way ... This is an engaging and satisfying comment on our society's failure to communicate." Duska Radosavljevic, in The Stage, reckoned that "midlife crisis, modern day living, neighbourly relations and playing God" were "a lot of big themes for a tiny play" and decided it was an "all too clever creation". Rosalie Doubal had no such trouble. Writing in the iconic Festival publication The List, she said: "Although this play rests on a small, domestic premise, it manages to take in an almost overwhelming array of themes ... While at risk of attempting to deal with too much, tight direction, consummate performances from Leof Kingsford-Smith and Lucy Miller, and an ingenious use of set, deliver Unit 46 from the potential pitfall of thematic over-kill." Commenting on the play's device of projecting two apartments into one, Graeme Strachan in British Theatre Guide said: "It's an admirable choice to have the cast occupy the same space, which itself only emphasises the bleakness and lack of identity these homes possess." He described it as "a treatise on loneliness and being unable to reach out to others ..." Richard Stamp of FringeGuru praised the "cleverness of the concept", "the well-judged, understated, near-flawless acting" but thought it a play that should take itself more seriously. Without giving anything away, he observed that "like so much of the play, the conclusion was surprising - yet rang too true". Despite reservations he gave it a healthy three and a half points. One4Review in the Daily News went straight to the point with "... compulsive viewing as scene by scene the character flaws are revealed ... a piece of theatre that is compelling yet fun
