Mother by Daniel Keene.
Presented by If Theatre and Regional Arts Victoria at The Q, Queanbeyan
Performing Arts Centre, Tuesday September 27 to Saturday October 1,
2016.
Directed by Matt Scholten; Set, Costume and Props by Kat Chan; Lighting Design by Tom Willis; Sound Design by Darius Kedros.
Performed by Noni Hazlehurst.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 27
Noni Hazlehurst in Mother
is not to be missed – and what a contrast to her wonderful reputation
as arguably the best-remembered and loved presenter of ABC Playschool.
On one level, Daniel Keene’s solo character Christy in Mother took my mind back to the beginning of this Melbourne tradition: Jack Hibberd’s existential Monk O’Neill in A Stretch of the Imagination (at The Pram Factory, 1972, played by another Australian acting icon, Max Gillies).
But there’s a big difference. Where Monk was a representation of the Australian misogynist male recalling his memories (a la
Samuel Beckett), for whom one can have very little empathetic feeling,
Christy is the epitome of sadness. Her memories may be confused by
turps and early onset dementia, but the story of her marriage and the
birth and death of her only child, the son she secretly names ‘Beau’,
cannot fail to touch our hearts.
We did not care about Monk
O’Neill as he approached death, except for its wider meaning that it was
time for what we now call sexism to die.
For Christy we still
feel hope as she glories in the fact of her continuing existence in
spite of all that life has thrown at her. Mother is a play of personal experience, and so seemingly less of an iconic drama of national identity, as A Stretch of the Imagination
is regarded. Yet Keene’s play balances Hibberd’s from a woman’s point
of view. Sexism still needs to die in 2016 as it should have done in
1972.
And in performing this woman, Noni Hazlehurst invites us in
to Christy’s complex personality with the skills of a great actor. Bit
by bit we find ourselves putting into proper context Christy’s
behaviour which ‘normal’people (like us) would think of as
unacceptable. Hazlehurst has such control of the detail of how Christy
speaks, how she moves, how she responds to sounds (especially of the
birds which have become so significant to her psychological state), and
how she thinks, that our understanding grows from a conventional
negative first impression to our joining her in celebrating “I’m here!
I’m here!” – even as we recognise the tragedy of her human condition.
Though
I think that some parts of Keene’s 70-minute script need tidying up to
keep the drama moving along more clearly, this play is a brave piece of
writing with a highly significant theme about the experience and
treatment of motherhood.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
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