2013: the (very) sad fish lady by Joy McDonald

the (very) sad fish lady conceived, written and directed by Joy McDonald.  At The Street Theatre - Street Two, Canberra, September 28 – October 5, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 28

Between a rock and a hard place, there are laid out across the dividing waters stepping stones to this highly imaginative piece of folk theatre.

On the Rock lives a Greek grandmother alone with her chicken.  On the Mediterranean island of a Hard Place live people who are never happy – not enough olives, not enough rain, too much rain, too windy.  They tread gingerly over the stepping stones – too many of them, of course – to have coffee with the Fish Lady, so that she can read the pictures in the coffee grounds and tell them their fortunes.

But her own fortune is sad – so sad that even her chicken stops laying her daily egg – because her children live far away across the sea in Australia and she has never seen her little grandaughter.

In her imagination she becomes a fish who could swim to the other side of the world, but it is the mysterious boatman, Mister Moustache – pronounced Moustaki – who sees her sadness and magically brings her family to visit.  Their coffee grounds all present the same picture.  She will travel across the sea with them all the way to Australia – and so she does.

Though the chicken is so happy for her that she lays three eggs in one day, I was not sure about the chicken’s future – hopefully to cheer up the people of the Hard Place.

Over the years I have seen too much slick entertainment for young children.  I have called Joy McDonald’s work folk theatre because, without pretension or the veneer of commercialism, her puppets, images and sound track tell a personal story of our times for the children of our multicultural families.  Her puppeteers, Ruth Pieloor and James Scott, put on no airs while their expertise is evident not only in operating complex string puppets, hand puppets, shadow puppets and even a boat with a puppet, Mister Moustache, apparently pulling oars that really move – as well as the sad and later the smiling moon.

It is, of course, the clever design work of Imogen Keen and Hilary Talbot that makes all this possible.  I guess, in the world of art criticism, the devices and imagery in the (very) sad fish lady might be called naїve art, but that’s exactly right for 3-5 year-olds.  And with music by David Pereira and dramaturgical support from Richard Bradshaw, it’s obvious that this folk art theatre, as I think I should call it – like naїve art – is certainly not unsophisticated.  Nor slick.  Nor commercial.

the (very) sad fish lady is genuine storytelling, fascinating for the littlies and equally amusing and significant for their parents.  Highly recommended.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2013: Michael Francis Willoughby in Elohgulp by Chris Thompson

Michael Francis Willoughby in Elohgulp written and directed by Chris Thompson.  Composer, John Shortis; sound designer, Ian Blake; set designer, David Hope; lighting designer, Alister Emerson; puppetry director, Catherine Roach.  Jigsaw Theatre Company at Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, September 28 – October 12, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 28

Jigsaw Theatre has a long successful history (see http://www.jigsawtheatre.com.au/content/about-jigsaw-theatre-company) – but this production is not one of its best.

There are elements of the show which are very attractive – the music composition and sound design; the puppets including the rubbish-cart Drits, the suspended jelly-fish-like Assupods, and the three-headed Gludse; and the lighting hung as part of the set to complement the sound effects.

But, despite Chris Thompson’s experience, the script was rather ‘ordinary’: it seemed to be too imitative of a number of children’s stories, mostly written for younger than the middle to upper primary level which Jigsaw was aiming at, while at the same time not handling scary material which these children like, along the lines of Roald Dahl.  The very realistic voice overs at the beginning of Michael’s parents arguing with each other and being angry with the boy for staying too long in the bath, with a basically empty stage, frightened me.

The pacing of the drama was too long-winded.  It took ages for the Drits to establish who and where they were before Michael finally appeared down the plughole from the “bathroom up there”.  Then it took more ages while he lay still on the floor before any action began.  In fact, as a theatrical device, the inability of the Drits and then the Assupods to make decisions and take action was not conducive to moving the drama along.  For this age group, bureaucratic committee meetings are hardly exciting.

Then there were the ducks.  Though cute in themselves, their tendency to pontificate and essentially present didactic statements about what the children in the audience were supposed to learn, to my mind, is the opposite of how educational drama should work.  Rather than be told “You learn a lot of things as you go along.  You learn about having friends you can trust; about telling stories, and passing things on; how some things can’t last forever, and that scary things can be scariest when you are furthest away from them.  And you learn that all these things are important.  Even for a kid.” I would expect the drama to reveal these points through the action and the audience to discover these ideas for themselves.

Finally, I was never sure whether I was supposed to take the matter of “all the good and bad and ugly stuff that gets flushed and washed and swept away down our gutters and sinks and bathtubs” as a reality which we should all feel guilty about; or whether all this, including Michael’s being willing to take the blame, was meant to be just in his imagination while he dreams in the bath to avoid hearing his parents arguing.

Either way, it’s not clear to me what the 8-10 year-olds’ take-home message was supposed to be.  Especially when the story became completely impossible as Michael leapt into what we had to suppose was a sewerage treatment pond.  The relevance of his duck’s grandparent having done this in 1932 was utterly lost on me, though there was talk of a great flood in that year.  Could that have meant that the flood flushed out the nasties in the pond, so the duck survived?  But with no flood now, Michael would have been eaten up by bacteria in no time – though he did have some concern about drowning!

Then, in a video at the end, Michael is back in his bath – but without his ‘Dirty Duck’.  So the visit to Elohgulp really happened, and his duck got left behind?

Sorry to be so nitpicking, but despite the attractive elements and the good quality performances, the production as a whole needs re-thinking in my book

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2013: Shrine by Tim Winton

Shrine by Tim Winton.  Black Swan State Theatre Company, Perth, directed by Kate Cherry, at Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse, September 26-29, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 26

Tim Winton is a storyteller, and so are his characters.  Alongside the road he sees a small white cross, some flowers and objects scattered around the base of a tree.  This is not just a memorial, but a shrine symbolic of the person who died there.  But what does it mean when among the bottles of spirits and beer there is an old thong?

He sees a middle-aged man, Adam, stop to angrily tear down the shrine and disperse all the memories.  But the next time Adam drives by, he has to stop and destroy the construction again.  Who keeps re-creating the shrine?

As we hear Adam Mansfield (John Howard), his wife Mary (Sarah McNeill) and the teenage girl June Fenton (Whitney Richards) tell their stories, which include the stories told by the teenagers who survived the crash, Will (Luke McMahon) and Ben (Will McNeill), and by the dead teenager Jack Mansfield (Paul Ashcroft), we discover a complexity of life of the kind that must be represented by every shrine we see along every country road.

It’s a sobering experience, yet also enlightening.  And for many, as Kate Cherry said in the pre-show forum, the play provides a catharsis, a kind of cleansing of fear, especially among parents of teenage boys.  Though there are humorous moments, this is a tragedy in the ancient Greek form.  We know the ending before the play begins, but how did it come to this?

In Winton’s storytelling, time is a highly malleable element.  All the physical items needed – the tree, the shrine, the two halves of the car, the funeral furniture, the fire on the beach, Adam’s beach house wine bar – are present on stage throughout, so scenes shift and time changes as characters move and are lit or shadowed.

The acting was excellent throughout, with to my mind special mention justified for the women, Whitney Richards and Sarah McNeill, whose roles reminded me of the Greek – of the young Antigone, who pleaded for the proper treatment of her dead brother, and an older Electra, left alone when all in the household are dead.  As, in some sense, the central character, John Howard’s creation of the diversity of attitudes and feelings within Adam Mansfield was a brilliant piece of work – not so much ancient Greek, but rather very recognisable modern Australian.

For West Australians, as we might expect from Winton’s other writing, there are points of local identification – but these give the work specificity while the issues are universal.  This is what makes for great storytelling, and an excellent drama on stage.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2013: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.  Sydney Theatre Company directed by Kip Williams, designer David Fleischer, lighting by Nicholas Rayment, sound by Alan John.  Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre 25 September - 2 November, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 25

As Tybalt, Paris and Romeo lay dead in the Capulet Tomb, and Juliet, revived from a death-imitating drug, told Friar Laurence “Go, get thee hence, for I will not away”, I found myself thinking “She’s on her own now...why can’t she go her own way now?”   And indeed, in this version, she mourns her cousin Tybalt, kisses the poisoned lips of her husband Romeo, and as in Shakespeare’s script ignores the body of Paris entirely.

Paris, rather than toting a sword in this modern scenario, had brought a pistol, saying to Romeo “Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.”  “I must indeed; and therefore came I hither,” responds Romeo, but Paris would not leave him alone in peace.  Hiding among the graves, Romeo managed to escape the gunfire, caught Paris by surprise, disarmed him and shot him dead.

But should Juliet die?  After all, she has said “I will kiss thy lips; / Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, to make me die with a restorative.”  Maybe she lives after all, to do what I would expect her to do: tell her father exactly what she thinks of him, even threatening to shoot him with Paris’ revolver, and then come forward to speak to us.

Before the play began she had spoken the words of the Chorus in the Prologue, about how the “continuance of their parents’ rage, / Which but their children’s end, nought could remove, / Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; / The which if you with patient ears attend, / What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”

We do not see Juliet die on this stage.  Instead of “O happy dagger! / This is thy sheath; / there rust, and let me die;” instead of the Watch, The Prince, the Friar, Capulet and Lady Capulet, Montague describing his wife dying from “Grief of my son’s exile”, taking up a long page and a half of script talking in the presence of the four dead bodies – Juliet speaks briefly, taking up the theme of Shakespeare’s final words “Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; / Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: / For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

Maybe we are seeing Juliet’s spirit speaking, as Emeritus Professor Penny Gay suggests in her essay Juliet Speaks reproduced in the program:  Looking more closely at what [Shakespeare] actually wrote, we might argue that the play is more interested in the impossible cultural position of the eloquent young woman, who knows what she wants and speaks of it without fear; argues for her right to it; and, in so doing, produces poetry that is the equal of that of any of the most passionate heroes in Shakespeare.

Surely this is the intention behind Kip Williams’ direction of this play in a modern setting and style – a great success, though certain to cause “more talk” both of “these sad things” and probably also of the issue of “updating” Shakespeare.

In fact the use of today’s “rave” music and everyday costumes, though at first not easily related to Shakespeare’s language, and references to swords and The Prince, did not update the play in the same sense as other recent productions have done – such as we saw in the recent film of Coriolanus with Ralph Fiennes.  The difference lies in the nature of a movie – which we naturally see as if it is real and present – compared with a stage play, which we know to be a theatrical contrivance.

As the Prologue tells us we are here to watch a play, so the players have the freedom to create a world in our imaginations as we listen to the words, see the movement, mime and set design, hear the music and sound effects, and so on.  It’s the old injunction to suspend our disbelief.  If the theatrical devices are designed and performed well, then you can play Shakespeare as if it were in his period of history, or in ours, or in a setting mixing elements from different times and places.

This production does the third option very well.  It is not long before we find ourselves engaged in a world where young men are just not very sensible, fun-loving but too often unable to see the consequences of their actions; where older men, having grown up from such young men, become tribal, authoritarian and vicious – unless they can stand outside themselves and see things more clearly from a monkish cell, as Friar Laurence does; and where women like Juliet’s mother are forced to accept the dominance of men, or like Juliet’s Nurse learn to take life as it comes with all the necessary compromises, or like Juliet have to take huge risks to stand up for what she wants.

The staging device of the two ringed revolve is very effective as it transports us as smoothly as Shakespeare’s Globe ever did from scene to scene.  If there was a sense of something missing, it was because there was no traditional physical balcony.

The acting was expert throughout, so that not only was there clarity of language (made better by the unobtrusive microphones), but every word was spoken with the character’s intention made clear to us – hooray for Stanislavski.  I’m going to have to set up some jealousy by mentioning Eamon Farren (a brilliant Mercutio), Julie Forsyth (a wonderful comic Nurse, but with a real tenderness coming through the rough exterior), and by making special mention of Eryn Jean Norvill who made the play hers as Juliet, and made it Juliet’s play for us.

For some, this production may be controversial.  For me it was just fascinating.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2013: From a Black Sky by Sandra France, with libretto by Helen Nourse

David Rogers-Smith (David), Don Bemrose (Tony), Judith Dodsworth (Sophie), Rachael Duncan (Amelia)

From a Black Sky composed by Sandra France, with libretto by Helen Nourse.  The Street Theatre Made in Canberra program in Street One, September 20-22, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 20

I’m not averse to a fictional story about a predatory lesbian who succeeds in making the husband of the woman she loves in effect commit suicide, by staying ostensibly to save his burning house.  It was rather odd that Sophie, the pred les (played by Judith Dodsworth), had a husband Tony (Don Bemrose), who apparently remained completely unaware of his wife’s shenanigans with Amelia (Rachael Duncan) and saw his mate David (David Rogers-Smith) as a shining hero for being man enough to stay – despite the fact that it was obvious that they should all have gone and left their houses to the fates.

I’m not averse either to modern art-form opera music and song, composed by Sandra France, especially when performed so well by this 11-piece ensemble conducted by David Kram.

But I do find it difficult, remembering my family’s fears and last-minute efforts to prepare the house on Saturday 18 January 2003, to work out why this fictional story was connected to that particular real firestorm, using recordings from radio broadcasts which people, now ten years later, will surely remember, and which makes this show specific to Canberra.

Yes, this story is a tragedy of misconceived relationships, and maybe things like this were happening on that eventful day, but to use that firestorm merely as a background setting is to set aside the depth of feeling attached to the unforeseen destruction of 500 homes and the deaths of four people in horrific circumstances.  I remember these feelings as we were on alert to stay or go for a full two weeks after the 18th.  If there is any day in my life when I remember where I was and what I was doing, it is that day.

That all said, let’s consider the opera and the performances as a theatrical production. 

Opera means a lot of singing, but only David Rogers-Smith had the voice and the diction to carry his words over the orchestra.  The words of the other three main characters and of the chorus were rarely understandable.  I had thought perhaps my ancient ears were at fault, but unsolicited comments from other and much younger audience members confirmed my experience.  The acoustics of Street One might not be the best, and the placement of the orchestra in the centre of the stage with singers mostly behind or off to the side, probably didn’t help.

But the storyline of this new work needed the diction to be clear.  I relied on the program notes to get me through.  Subtitles or supertitles might be acceptable for foreign language operas, but surely not for one sung in ordinary plain suburban English.

The beginning and ending, using young children, was an embarrassment.  I don’t mean the children were, but the idea of a happy sort-of 19th Century opera marketplace scene to open the show just doesn’t match the Canberra shopping centres we know and love.  And the ending, so the program states, is about how “Children, teenagers, community, Tony, Sophie and Amelia all look at what their futures will hold and the memories and regrets they will forever carry”.  I saw what looked and felt like a reprise of the happy, but now just a little bit more sort-of, opening scene.  What firestorm ... what death of David?

In fact the only scene in the production which had real theatrical effect was the final solo appearance by David and his demise in the fire, with clever lighting and use of the backstage roller door.  This was genuinely dramatic, allowing us to feel at last some empathy with a thoroughly negative character who seemed to have little drive to face up to difficulties, such as having been recently retrenched.

The two women’s powerful singing did make something of their final scene together, climaxing with Amelia’s spoken “You disgust me!”  Yet shortly after, we are expected accept Tony, Sophie and Amelia seemingly reconciled.  After a play apparently presenting reality, even down to a rather clumsy sex-scene by the women in Act One, ending this way was just not possible.

I think you should not miss the music, nor the voices per se, but don’t go for the drama experience.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2013: A Suppository of Wisdom by Shortis & Simpson

Moya Simpson

John Shortis

A Suppository of Wisdom by Shortis & Simpson at Smith’s Alternative Bookshop, Canberra, September 12-14, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 13

John Shortis and Moya Simpson have produced another classic collection of satirical songs and monologues arising from political events, in this case the moveable feast of the Federal Election on September 7. 

So delectably unstable is this table setting that even though by the second performance they had picked up on Sophie Mirabella’s loss in the Victorian electorate of Indi, they still included the song of horror – on the part of new Prime Minister Tony Abbott – about Barnaby Joyce becoming leader of the Nationals  and therefore deputy leader of the Liberal National Coalition (traditionally offered appointment as Treasurer).  Only that very afternoon, Warren Truss was confirmed as the Nationals’ leader, while Barnaby, having successfully moved from the Senate (Queensland) to the House of Representatives (New England, NSW) is now Nationals’ deputy leader, therefore being tipped for the traditional Country Party post as Minister for Agriculture.  With his views about coal-seam gas and foreign investors buying up farming land, the horror may go on for Mr Abbott.

To have written, rehearsed and so professionally performed 18 numbers – and a thoroughly deserved encore – in less than a week says a great deal about not only Shortis & Simpson’s sense of humour but also about their dedication to the task.  After some 17 years of satire which has made them a Canberra icon, performing now in the Bookshop which is rapidly becoming the kind of small music venue reminding me of icons of the days of old in Sydney, such as The Basement and The Troubador, A Suppository of Wisdom found its audience, and the discriminating audience was not disappointed.

It is hard to pick one number above all the others, especially because each had its own special music and singing style, but maybe the two that had the audience most in fits of laughter were the yodelling Tony A and the drunken monologue Learless Feeders. 

Beginning from the idea that Tony Abbott was picking up from the US Tea Party and Sarah Palin, Simpson’s “Tony a...yay...yay” took on a life of its own that still rings in the mind.  This is a song for YouTube, surely to become the theme song for this Government until a double dissolution or the antics of the kangaroo-poo-throwing Senator Ricky Muir (elected with less than 2% of primary votes) bring the Parliament into convulsions – maybe not of laughter – some time next year.

But perhaps the truest satire was Simpson’s monologue as a typical Aussie bloke, drunk on alcohol and the power of words, with extensive views on all aspects of politics – except that every phrase, including all the usual obscenities which pepper such rantings at the bar, had the first letters of significant words reversed.  As an early exponent of Alzheimer’s, I and many of the audience (who, Shortis claimed, had increased the usual average age in the venue by 40 years) were completely overwhelmed not only with the laughter that this generated, but with the fascinating mental exercise of trying work out, at speed, what the words were and then realising how they undermined all the pretentiousness of every politician mentioned.

This speech, to my mind, matches Peter Sellers’ famous political speech (“Let me grasp ....”) and definitely should be recorded on Shortis & Simpson’s next CD.  Or better, put this up on YouTube – it is sure to go “viral”.

Unfortunately, since elections and their results are so volatile, A Suppository of Wisdom has already come and gone by the time you read this.  But Smith’s Alternative Bookshop looks like lasting for quite a while yet, with jazz, stand-up comedy and maybe more Shortis & Simpson to come.  I certainly hope so.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

John Shortis on ukelele and Moya Simpson in full yodel

2013: Project Rameau. Choreography by Rafael Bonachela

Project Rameau Sydney Dance Company - choreography by Rafael Bonachela; Australian Chamber Orchestra – guest director Dale Barltrop.  Lighting and set design: Benjamin Cisterne.  Costume design: Rafel Bonachela and Fiona Holley.  Music editor and arranger: Graham Sadler.  Dance director: Amy Hollingsworth.  Canberra Theatre Centre, September 12-14, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 12

Music and dance for the sake of music and dance.  This collaboration between the artistic directors Richard Tognetti (ACO) and Rafael Bonachela (SDC) is perhaps the most accessible modern dance work one can imagine – thoroughly imbued with the energy of youth.

It is a celebration of the ebb and flow of life, in social groups with a tremendous sense of community; in couples drifting together and drifting apart; as individuals expressing the mood of the moment; in times of reflection; in times of grand enjoyment.  The joy and satisfaction at the end of an hour’s continuous engagement in the sound and sights of this performance moved the audience to applaud for curtain call after curtain call.

The skills of the ACO musicians and the SDC dancers were beyond reproach – indeed far beyond my understanding.  How they can do it I don’t know, but the effect is mesmerising.

The music is not all by Jean-Philippe Rameau.  For example, Vivaldi’s storm, the presto from Summer, The Four Seasons provided an opportunity to see youth temporarily at the mercy of events outside of themselves, which, of course, they usually gaily ignore.

The stage design was interesting, with the orchestra upstage and a part of the performance instead of being relegated to the pit.  This meant the cueing, the beat and the mood of each of the twenty numbers in the show was immediately in the control of all the  performers – dancers and musicians – working as a unified group.  The result was an electricity lighting up each piece dramatically.

Though the simple black costumes and the modern technology in the lighting created a very much up-to-date 21st Century style, the ensemble quality with the visible live orchestra behind the dancers somehow seemed appropriate for this music originally written and performed in Rameau’s 18th Century operas, ten of which are represented here.  The atmosphere as the performance concluded was surely very like that in the opera houses of France where Rameau’s work was so popular.

Was this a worthwhile project?  Absolutely, in my view.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2013: RU4ME by Annie Byron

RU4ME based on Kissing Frogs by Andee Jones, written and performed by Annie Byron, directed by Wayne Harrison.  True West Theatre & Riverside Productions at The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, September 11-14, 2013.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 11

If you’re a man and you haven’t GSoH, you might like to avoid this witty and telling story of Annie’s search for an arthouse cinema buddy on the internet dating service RU4ME.  Except, of course, she discovers that, at her age after raising her now-adult children, having a common interest in arthouse cinema is not what it’s really all about.  Especially when the few men she meets who actually have a sense of humour very soon find someone else.

Each of the 40 or so others not only have their individual characteristics which activate her delete button, but have in common an inability to recognise her as a person in her own right.  “Do I have to become submissive to play this game?” she asks herself, and asks us.

The wonderful thing about her play and her playing of the role is the light touch, which infuses not only the script but the set design (Andrea Espinoza), sound design (Jeremy “Jed” Silver), lighting and video (Nicholas Higgins) and the whole concept in Wayne Harrison’s directing.

There is a message behind the laughter, coming from Byron’s own experience when “I plunged into internet dating myself, and when the first person I met was so obviously not what his profile described”.  It’s not just so many men who  misrepresent themselves and fail to understand that women are equal, but she has also to learn to see herself for what she really is and really wants.

Can she find this through profiles, email, Photoshopped images, going to movies, risking alarm bells ringing in her head at “parties”.  LoL, of course not.

But, laugh out loud as we do, it’s in real life that she finds what she needs – and we are glad for her.

And we appreciate Annie Byron’s precise acting skills which bring this story to life.  If you come without a SoH, you’ll surely find one in this hour and a quarter show.


© Frank McKone, Canberra

2013: Home at the End by Duncan Ley

Home at the End by Duncan Ley.  Everyman Theatre directed by Jarrad West.  Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, September 4-14, 2013


Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 4

Duncan Ley likes to explore the psychological effects arising from a very specific situation.  You’ll surely remember the interrogation in his In Cold Light (soon to be a feature film) with its unexpected twists and turns creating the effect of a mystery drama.  We search to find out what is happening, and why.

In Home at the End, Act 1 ends with a sudden and completely unexpected horrific event.  I even wondered if this was the end of the play, but as others obviously more in the know on opening night wandered off to the bar for interval, I then had to wonder what on earth could happen next.

Because the play is a mystery I should not reveal just what does happen, except to say that the title means what it says.  The character, Joe Smith, who we realise in the second half is the central figure in the drama, does come home, at the end.  But it took me considerable time and analysis afterwards to work out what should be understood to be the theme of the play.

Apart from the question of the limitations of my intellect, does this mean that the play is a success or not?  I mentioned In Cold Light because that play ran for just 90 minutes, was absolutely tightly focussed, and made us understand, and even empathise with, the Inspector – the interrogator, who is as much trapped in the situation as the victim.

Home at the End runs for almost two and a half hours, not including interval.  Soon after Act 2 got under way I realised what the ending might be – and I was right.  But this meant that a great deal of Act 2 could have been trimmed, as well as some of Act 1, so that the drama’s momentum, already at a high point at the end of Act 1, would be better maintained – either to an inevitable end (which I saw coming), or a surprise end, which would need a reworking of Joe’s psychological development in Act 2.  He would need to be apparently coping much better with the trauma of his experience at the end of Act 1, but lose it against our expectations when his (at this point imaginary) wife Andrea sings her final song and fades away.

What the play is about is the experience of traumatic stress.  What can we expect a person to do at the dreadful moment of absolute threat?  Like any animal, and we are only a species of animal after all, will it be fight or flight?  Does a person, in this moment, have any control over their response?  I think Ley says, no.

The response to such fear, especially as in his play when the horrific event is completely unexpected by the character, Joe – and by us in the audience – is entirely instinctive.  Can, then, the person be blamed if he flees to save himself, when he might have fought back, at least yelling out a warning to others, or attacking the danger even at the risk of losing his own life?

It is this issue which is played out in the attempts to treat Joe’s traumatic stress disorder through group therapy and psychological counselling in Act 2.  Can treatment of this kind be successful?  I think again, Ley says not really.  “Home” at the end, for this person, Joe, is no kind of comfortable resolution.  It’s just an escape into pathological story-telling.

At this point, the impact of the play broadens.  Joe is (or was before the trauma) a writer.  Does Ley suggest that to be a writer is to be escaping into story-telling?  In his case certainly not pathological, even if in this play a bit long-winded.  Traumatic Stress Disorder is now such an issue in the world that TSD is a label in its own right, and counselling is seen as a necessary part of help for anyone faced with the kind of experience that Joe has.  The issue, and therefore this story, is important.

Putting this story on stage, and with excellent performances from all the cast – Isaac Reilly as Joe, Helen McFarlane as Andrea, Amy Dunham and her unusual puppet as their 6-year-old daughter Molly, with Jordan Best, Geoffrey Borny, Laura Dawson, Duncan Driver, Alice Ferguson, Will Huang, and Chris Zuber playing all the other roles (including quite fascinating commedia dell’arte characters) – makes for a very worthwhile theatre experience.  Highly recommended.

© Frank McKone, Canberra