Reviews

“I have tried to write a version of this story for many years but was never quite able to finish. A solitary figure, unable to connect, abandoned at the edge of the world.”

In Shore Break, Chris Pitman has undoubtedly succeeded with this succinct monologue which crests and breaks like the intimidating waves it so vividly invokes.

This richly metaphoric, but also forensically realistic, account of a young man’s diminishing destiny begins in a classroom. Our unnamed narrator is describing his English class. The hapless teacher, Budgie, is desperately trying to imbue disaffected schoolboys with a sense of the splendour and perils of existence.

He wants them to learn poetry by heart that will stay with them in later life. One particular poem – The Lure of the Desert Land, by Madge Morris – describes an overwhelming “soundless fury” hiding the world and quenching the sun, leaving “just you, and your soul and nothing there”.

For our anti-hero, this existential isolation is not in the desert but on the edge of it – “where it meets the sea”, giving way “to this scrubby flat-arsed dune”.

A longtime surfer and beach dweller himself, Pitman is intrigued by those boon companions with their boards and their pursuit of the perfect wave. It is such an Australian theme. The Endless Summer, the bleached, tanned hedonism that captured young people especially in the ’60s and ’70s, is both a glorious example and a cliché of the Australian idyll.

But for a young man dropping out of school, at odds with parents defeated by life, and with few prospects in a privileged world, the beach is also a kind of last resort. It is his father, continually stoked on alcohol and withdrawn into mute isolation, who introduces our narrator to the mystery and grandeur of the surf, of pitting oneself against the dangers and glories of the ocean. Not that he joined in. He left him by himself ­– to sink or swim – and headed to the pub instead.

In Brink’s outstanding production, Pitman has not only written (in collaboration with co-directors Chelsea Griffith and Chris Drummond) an exceptional play, but performs it splendidly. He has featured memorably in productions ranging from a long stint in Cloudstreet to recent  triumphs in Glengarry Glen Ross and The Dictionary of Lost Words. But here he excels even further.

In the Space Theatre, the simple set (devised by Pitman) consists of a rectangular rough coir mat, a folding beach chair, a plastic crate draped with a wetsuit, beach towels and a white surfboard. Bathed in buttery summer light by the excellent Sue Grey-Gardner, it is theatre at its most rudimentary and immediate. No soundscapes, no shifts of décor, projection screens, or music. It is an actor with his text.

In a tan T-shirt, jeans and bare feet, Pitman sits in his chair, sometimes sanding his surfboard, telling a story which is an amalgam of memories, observations, and imaginings. His delivery is relaxed, laconic, droll. It is understated and restrained, drawing us closer. Bringing us into his confidence, telling it, often amusingly, like it is.

When the unnamed man later reveals the dark path of prison and violence, and his ultimate desolation confronting his torments, Pitman is compelling, never straying into bombast or false emotion. The performance is astutely weighted, never too ocker (to dredge up a lost term), and effortlessly carries the ambition of its metaphor, and social and psychological commentary.

Pitman introduces a range of characters, all of them shrewdly and deftly drawn: his father, who has retreated into silent anger and defeat, sitting at the table every night but never really there; his mother, determinedly vibrant and earthy but vacant all the same; Kate, his one real chance at love – lost, as he replicates his father’s misanthropic dissociation.

Like a bogan Beckett character, Pitman’s creation knows the world is “cooked” but has no words or strategies to counteract this. Except on his surfboard. When he enters that epicentre of towering ocean wave motion, navigating that tunnel, that “free ride through the barrel”. That is when he triumphantly posits balance and perfection against chaos and failure.

Shore Break is a most welcome inclusion in State Theatre’s Stateside umbrella program. There has always been a distinctively Australian version of suppressed rage and emotional locked-in syndrome – in multiple generations of men – and it is more destructively evident than ever. In an engaging, accessible, and insightful 75 minutes, Pitman has put words to the inarticulate suffering and damage of many.

This production has much to say and deserves a touring life well beyond this limited season. In the meantime, there are still four more performances. Don’t miss out.

Living alone by the beach. Living for the surf. Sounds so idyllic. Trouble free.

Living with yourself by the beach as escape. Refuge from the ‘real’ world. From what’s in your head and a trail of life disasters. Not so pristine or utopian.

Chris Pitman’s many surf adventures brought him into contact with such recluses. Exposed him to the symbiotic connection with the sea they had in place of human society. He wrote Shore Break.

Shore Break is a brazen, raw, harsh, broken glass savage yet intensely poetic text. The story of one such shore breaker, under Director Chelsea Griffith’s deft pacing of the text, allows Pitman’s solo character to seemingly become three individual’s stories in one.

Griffith’s production is a straight-up, bare-bones affair in every respect. Susan Grey Gardener’s lighting is unchanging, sea and sun yellow. The set is nothing more than a square straw mat, a surfboard, deck chair, yellow coke crate with tradie jacket draped over it, and a surfboard leg rope. There is nowhere to hide. No stage tricks.

How is a shore breaker made?

Pitman offers one who starts being bit of a character. A great wit with no head for school. One who rebuffs praise. Lived a semi happy working class family life with a dad who took him to the beach. Once there it really begins.

At each struggle, cruising the channel of a huge wave offers redemption. Deep diving to the sea floor offers escape. While real world life gets worse. The shore is fast becoming the home nowhere else is.

This character’s life tales are told backwards in a manner offering a dual sense of deep regret for a life’s horrors spiralling out of control and of the growing hope the shore constantly offers.

This reverse-life structure is key to Pitman and Director Griffiths ability to segment this shore breaker’s life in a manner which makes each segment seem an autonomous life moment of another individual.

This also pushes Pitman as an actor to the height of his game. He finds nuance, subtle and brazen, in giving life to an accidental misfit’s moments, recognising life is at that too-late point in relationships, in social interaction, in mythical surf ‘work’ life.

Pain is as deep and sharp as regret is soft in soulful acceptance.

There is only the shore.

Writer /actor Chris Pitman has created a powerful story with his one-person show, Shore Break. It is a fictional story about a solitary figure, unable to connect, abandoned at the edge of the world. It’s a combined snapshot of the older men living in remote campgrounds and their isolated existences. Director Chelsea Griffith has helped shape the story into one that blurs the edges of the personal scripts that we develop with others in our world, our parents, teachers, friends, neighbours and lovers.

A spartan setting in the intimate Space Theatre contains little more than a towel draped over a camp chair, a surfboard and odd dietrus of camping life. Chris enters, sits down, picks up his board and recites a poem. A poem that his English teacher made him learn and one that holds a fascination with him. He’s caught between the desert and the ocean. Alone and resigned to waiting out his time on earth.

It’s like when you’re sitting around a campfire, and someone tells you their life story. We hear amusing anecdotes about his early life. The drunken father who never quite knew how to connect to his son, but one day dragged an oversized wooden surfboard home for him. His mother who managed to keep the peace at home. His unsuccessful approaches with the opposite sex. His friendship with a fellow outcast student that turned sour. A brief love affair that similarly ended.

All of these chapters are told in in a raw, honest, and insightful way. He finds true happiness in the lure of the ocean, surfing and the lifestyle. Which also has a way of turning against him. The emotional honesty is balanced with self-deprecating humour and as we listen, it’s with a feeling of inevitability that life has a sting in its tail at every opportunity. Yet, the hardships do little to quench his ideals, only to harden his resolve to wait his time out.

There were many examples of some of the difficulties that young men in particular go through, if they don’t fit the mold of either the sports jock or intellectual. The stories were uncomfortably familiar to many in the audience. Although resources are probably more common to help those with mental health needs, the stories come from a period where these problems were dismissed and swept under the carpet. Leading to an epidemic of men who are left on the edges of society.

Shore Break is a powerful and captivating story of humanity and life that perfectly balances humour and tragedy. A story of one man, it resonates through the Australian male psyche. It’s a story that sits with you long after the lights go down.

5 STARS

Shore Break is the brainchild of South Australian writer and performer, Chris Pitman. Pitman is also a surfer, and has spent years chasing waves along the coast where he meets fellow enthusiasts. His passion for the ocean, his eloquence, and fondness for wry Australian vernacular combine in his new one-person play.

The set is simple yet carefully arranged. A natural, woven rug lies in the middle of a black stage. Our stand in for sand. Beach supplies are scattered around: a single towel, an old juice container being used as a water bottle, a low folding chair, wetsuit, and surfboard. From these humble and weathered items, the audience can already gleam much about the narrator before he walks outs. His face is lined with careless grey stubble, wearing faded jeans and a t-shirt. Someone who would rather share the breach with brown snakes and baby lizards than hipsters and influencers. 

The narrator is not given a name, because he represents many Australians. He speaks for every person who goes to the beach in search of solace and solitude. He remembers the small yet stinging traumas of his childhood, and how the beach offered him the freedom and relief he desperately craved. His stories are told with passion, honesty, and a dark sense of humour. His cries turn into a whisper as he recounts his life’s greatest regrets, and how each one leads him back to the ocean. But can the waves also offer him redemption?

Shore Break is a passionate story of remorse, yet a feeling of hope is allowed to linger in the salty air. The audience is putty in Pitman’s hands, laughing when he wants and crying along with him. It packs a powerful punch, especially considering the skeleton crew behind it. Pitman as writer and performer, along with Chelsea Griffith and Chris Drummond as directors, should be celebrated.

Shore Break by Chris Pitman turns the tide of modern theatre, which has been swept up in a current of layers, technology, and novelty, and instead returns us to the simple purity of one player, one light, and one story. In an era where theatre productions often feel like sensory overload, this poetic monodrama cuts through the noise and brings us back to the raw essence of storytelling.

Staged by Brink Productions at the Adelaide Festival Centre, Shore Break is a meditation on isolation, masculinity, and the human need for connection. Pitman’s solo performance is nothing short of gut-wrenching, portraying a man sitting on the edge of the world—quite literally, perched on the shore with his surfboard, gazing out at the sea. It’s just him, his memories, and the ocean, which becomes a silent partner in his search for meaning.

The ocean, with its ever-changing moods, mirrors the inner turmoil of Pitman’s character, a man who reflects on the people he’s loved and lost, while feeling the pull of the waves. The line from the play, “you surf the lines the waves give you,” resonates as both a reflection of surfing and life itself. In crafting Shore Break, Pitman seems to have done the same. Like a surfer reading the water, Pitman has taken the raw material of interviews with outliers—those who have chosen to live isolated lives on the coast—and crafted their stories into a seamless, haunting narrative. It’s as if he simply “surfed the lines his subjects gave him,” yet with the skill and precision of a seasoned rider, finessed every word to perfection. You can hear him recount this process in our recent interview with him: Chris Pitman From Beaches To The Stage.

For those of us who know the ocean, there’s something about the rhythm of the waves that draws us in—there’s comfort, yes, but also the power to unearth something deep within. Pitman captures this perfectly. His portrayal of a man seeking solace in the water while wrestling with loneliness, rejection, and regret hits hard, like the wave you didn’t see coming.

Pitman’s script is sharp, poetic, and steeped in truth. His writing speaks to the vulnerability that many men feel but rarely express. And while the story of a solitary man at the water’s edge could easily fall into cliché, Pitman dodges that wave entirely, delivering something raw and real, including the ultimate insight that for all his seeking of solitude, it took being in a relationship with another to shine a light on his real self.

Perhaps some of the simplicity and the complexity has arisen because Chris yielded to input from his co-directors, Chelsea Griffith and Chris Drummond. Both brought different rips and tides of insight and the result is an interesting sea of emotion and posture; never a dull moment, not even in moments of calm.

In the end, Shore Break isn’t just a play about surfing or isolation. It’s about the quiet truths we avoid, the roles we play, and the delicate balance between connection and solitude.

In a world still reeling from the father hunger that Steve Biddulph wrote about in his timeless book, Manhood, Shore Break stings and surely any tears are due to grains of memories that might just get whipped into our eyes.

My advice: Buy a ticket, sit alone, let the story wash over you, then settle down next to someone who’s experienced it, too, and just be present with them. The lines will surely come. Follow them then.

Shore Break, a vernacular soliloquy delivered by Chris Pitman, mesmerised the preview audience in the Space Theatre. Working with directors, Chelsea Griffith and Chris Drummond, he has taken on a great challenge. He has nowhere to hide as actor, or writer. The man stands barefoot on seagrass matting. There’s a surfboard and a beach chair. A yellow milk crate exists only to be kicked. He’s a plain-speaking working-class lad, and you’ll need to lean forward as he’s not amplified. He speaks eloquently of his meeting with the sea. It’s, as we find out, a gift, perhaps the only one, from his father. The sea, either partnered through surfing or terrifying in fury, is both a character and a metaphor. As a young boy, a battered old surfboard took him far from shore to lie perfectly alone, and now he returns to that patch of beach where he truly belongs. The details of how he found it again and, indeed, where it is, are irrelevant. This liminal space is his stage, and the sea and us, of course, are party to his life story.

The man seems to have a real problem empathizing with the humans around him. At one point he is proud to have reduced a well-meaning teacher to tears in front of the class. He can describe the clouds outside the classroom windows, but not the life inside. Now, he’d attract a diagnosis of ADHD.

You are shocked, but not surprised, when he admits he missed his father’s funeral because he was in jail. The slow lead-up to the event that jailed him, reaches a climax, when he almost by accident, gets into a fight, and wins. A man in a bar picks a fight with him. The description of the fight is graphic, and the ending is heart-touching as the man who initiated the fight pleads in tears to be left alone. You feel so deeply for that man.

The last minutes of the play have Pitman caught up in the great wave and surrendering and yet trying to survive. Spat out onto the beach, or just caught up in all the memories that are supposed to flash between our eyes at the point of death, he is subsumed in the purifying and unthinking touch of the sea. We witness the last moments of a man we cannot like or love. As theatre-goers, we are primed to identify but, here, we applaud the actor and writer for a creation we can only observe, rather like a species of animal, or an insect under a microscope.

Chris Pitman’s achievement is mighty as an actor holding our attention and bringing a sturdy presence to our attention. As a writer, he has created a man of a type we would avoid, yet gives us the insight that enlivens a life without art.