Codgers by Don Reid. A Steady Lad and Christine Dunstan
production, directed by Wayne Harrison at Queanbeyan Performing Arts
Centre, The Q, March 24-27, 2010
Even though the
performances by a cast of luminaries like Ron Haddrick and Shane
Porteous made for an enjoyable evening, the play is too lightweight for
the themes the author introduces: racial and social prejudice, fear of
change, the legacy of The Great War and the Second World War, what it
means to be Australian.
The good idea behind the comedy
is undermined by crude sexual innuendo, fart jokes and, most
unfortunately, by the completely gratuitous use of a device – the sudden
death of the youngest “codger” – to bring the play to a sentimental
end. Harrison obviously worked hard to produce laughs from “business”
like expressions of the men’s faces as they were put through their
physical exercises, and the actors played the clown for everything it
was worth. But nothing could cover up the basic superficiality of the
characters and the relationships between them.
If it
had been played as a true stylised farce, with speed and rapid pacing,
it may have worked better. The mawkish sentiment and the unrealistic
conflicts might then have become integrated into a consistent work, all
of which could be taken as an ironic comic commentary on a certain kind
of older Anglo-Australian male. In this production, stylisation was
used to begin the play and to introduce some scenes, while slapstick
took over in many scenes and in others we were expected to take
characters and their reactions for real. This mix doesn’t hang
together.
In the end, having done their best with a
script which needs much more original use of language, a set of more
complex characters and a less predictable plot, and working very well as
an ensemble, the cast save the play. It reminded me of a rather
old-fashioned theatre-in-education piece about multicultural harmony (it
was Harmony Day last Sunday) – not for children, but rather for men in
their second childhood. At my age, 69, I found I felt quite out of
touch with the world of these “codgers”. If there was a point where I
felt at home, it was in the character (and the portrayal by Jon Lam) of
Stanley Chang. He made the evening worthwhile for me.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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