2,000 Feet Away

Synopsis

Eldon, Iowa is a tiny community in the heartland of America. Its Deputy Sheriff is charged with enforcing the new state law banning sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, parks, bus stops, public libraries, or anywhere else children may gather. When the deputy is compelled to evict his neighbours’ son the new law hits home. Over the course of this single weekend, fear and intolerance swell in Eldon and the two men are thrown together to discover that there is nowhere in this vast landscape for Iowa’s outcasts to go. 2,000 Feet Away tells a gripping story about reasonable laws with terrible consequences and the price we pay for safety at any cost.

Our Review:

17 June 2008

The title of Anthony Weigh’s first play – the Australian actor/writer has had the script developed in the National Theatre studio – refers to a state law in Iowa banning sex offenders from living within striking distance of public places where children gather.

The question is, though, where do sex offenders go? The play harps on the metaphor of the pied piper leading the rats away from the town and into the water. What if there’s no water? Weigh suggests we have to find a way of living together, accommodating the rats.

Or, as Joseph Fiennes, thoroughly compelling as the not too bright deputy sheriff, says, “We gotta be safe from ourselves.” It is good to see Fiennes junior on the stage again, but I’m a little mystified over his casting here, as the character is plainly obese and living on free doughnuts.

Weigh’s agile text stumbles a bit in hard-to-follow consequences of the cheap motel going up in flames – the Bush is momentarily raining sp...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

rds - 17 July 2008:

Superb ensemble acting from a company ranging in ages from 6 to 60(?). Oliver Coopersmith as The Boy (the older one) acted with a confidence well beyond his years as did The Girl who played that part on the night I went - Friday the 11th of July. I found it a very disturbing play, imaginatively staged and written with a real sense of character. Joseph Fiennes as the slouching, indolent police officer, a la Marlon Brando, was mesmerising. Kirsty Bushell and Kevin Trainor gave us perfectly measured perfiormances as a idiosincratic manager and waiter respectively. And finally Roger Sloman and Phyliss Logan two people caught up in events they cannot comprehend or even want to comprehend, but instead languish in innocence for a lost America. ...

Read more and add your own review