Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Cate Blanchett.
To perform a monologue of over a certain length takes a huge amount of skill on behalf of the actor, whose voice must convey every emotion, and reveal every secret, and that of the writer, is an act of artistry that few can convey with a complete and utter resounding of detail in which the audience can feel the trust of the performance as being exposed as a confession, a sense of the sacred divine in human form.
To expose that trust takes phenomenal willpower and alertness, especially when that one actor is only playing the single part, no interjection of another’s viewpoint to be added to the unfolding tale, and in Wallace Shawn’s The Fever, the world of modern day privilege and its unsettling thought as bare aggression in the eyes of the young, questioning liberal, is so subtly captured that it will divide the audience as their opinions and definition are explored and their sympathies stretched to a fascinating breaking point.
The unnamed woman at the very centre of the discussion that ensues emerges from a kind of concealment, the rigours of a comfortable life have opened up a schism in her thought process and as she lays ill in her hotel room in a foreign country struck by civil war, the listener is thrust into the psyche of a person suffering their own internal conflict and memories and shown the breaking point of a woman under siege.
Cate Blanchett, known worldwide for her extraordinary performances on film, rises to the occasion of radio with poise and a simmering conviction in this dramatic monologue.
It is in the self-examination of liberal values that the unnamed soul finds herself in a type of Hell not imagined by Dante; one surrounded by doubt of conviction and the curse of ever-shifting attitudes to fit the narrative of the moment.
In this, The Fever resolutely captures the arrogance and the deceit felt by so many as their own conscious chides them for doing well in the face of other’s misery; and whilst we should always look for the chance to mature and see life for the terrible hardships faced by others, the stance is not always obtainable.
A terrific balance of pride displaced, and acceptance sought, The Fever is a delicious dream of an audio performance by one of the top-rated actors of our day.
Ian D. Hall