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Often captivating, often mystifying drama/thriller – Will she shoot the sheriff? 

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Playwright Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller’s latest play is a rather original take on the ‘a stranger comes to town’ motif. Co-directed by Brimmer-Beller and Phoebe Rowell John, Port City Signature takes us through a single evening in which a young woman, the Newcomer, walks alone into a quiet local pub in a sleepy seaside town after getting off the train at the wrong stop. Accosted by the Regular, and the Lady, serving behind the bar, who attempt to convince the Newcomer to shoot the town’s local sheriff before she boards the last train out of town forever.

The play poses an enticing question to the audience at the beginning: ‘Will she shoot the sheriff?’. The play then draws us closer to the answer to that question at a healthy pace. Why then, did I leave the theatre feeling somewhat unsatisfied? 

Despite the play being grounded in realism, set in an unconfirmed time, though presumably the 70s or 80s, the premise of the plot never felt believable. The idea that two strangers who exist in a morally grey area between good and evil would ask a timid stranger to commit murder never truly sat right. As the plot advances, more and more questionable decisions are made that feel inconsistent in sequence from what we previously saw or heard minutes earlier from the same respective characters. 

The most important character, the Newcomer, portrayed by Meg Clarke, is perhaps the largest enigma – the journey of timid stranger hard on their luck to potential executioner would have perhaps landed better had the play been longer, and the character given more time to develop. In addition, I would assume a clear decision was made to have the Newcomer speak in a strong ‘Received Pronunciation’ accent, presumably to show a surface level dichotomy from the way they speak and their thought process around a potential murder, though at times this felt overdone. 

The characters of the Regular and the Lady were played well by Paddy Echlin and Katherine Lea, respectively, but it was David Carter as the Sheriff who, despite having the smallest role, made the largest impression on stage. Built up as a bogeyman whose death would serve the greater good, when the Sheriff finally makes his entrance, Carter’s demeanour is intimidating, and his energy creates an instant oppressive fog of tension. 

As a piece of entertainment, Port City Signature is best enjoyed without too much critical thought. It’s engaging, original, and even fun if you’re a fan of gun-driven tension. When you start to challenge it for its realism, then the cracks begin to show.