“TAN BOOTS: To the girl in
tan boots who always gets on at St Leonards, you are my angel of the morning.
My daily fix of heaven. – Man in Grey Suit.”
How can someone
disappear from full view, from one of the busiest train stations in the
country? How do you stay visible in a big, busy city? They’re the questions
that lie at the heart of Tahli Corin’s Girl in Tan
Boots currently playing at Griffin Theatre as part of their Griffin
Independent season. To quote the season book, “Hannah is 32, single and slightly overweight.
Hannah has eczema and lives alone with a cat named Cupid. Hannah reads the love
messages in the commuter magazine religiously, hoping one day, one day, there
will be one just for her. But when Hannah goes missing while waiting for a
mystery man at a Sydney
train station, her friends and family are left to question whether their
actions played a part.”
It’s a dark play, certainly,
there’s no denying it. But it’s also quite delicate and touching, quite
beautiful and funny at the same time. There’s a loneliness that sits at its
heart that seems to bleed through, into the characters’ lives, into the staging,
into the set, even the performances at times, and it’s quite powerful and
affecting stuff.