2007

Hotel Sorrento

By Hannie Rayson

Christine Harris and HIT Productions

Her Majesty’s

Two Weeks with the Queen

Adapted by Mary Morris

from the novel by Morris Gleitzman

Windmill Performing Arts

Dunstan Playhouse

Unspoken

Written and performed by Rebecca Clarke

Vitalstatistix and Performing Lines

Waterside, Port Adelaide

Murray Bramwell

The eventual fate of a successful play can often be sustained obscurity. This is true of other art forms too – but there is nothing more obscure than a play that is no longer performed. The drama of the recent past is often the most overlooked and the reasons are not surprising. There is concern that they have become dated, that the cultural mood that sustained them in their moment has now dwindled – and on the shelf they stay. So, it is interesting to see how HIT Productions’ revival of Hotel Sorrentino, Hannie Rayson’s success from 1990, now stacks up.

The answer is – rather well. There is something timeless, of course, about the central story of three sisters. Two of them, Meg and Pippa, are drop-ins from New York and London, the third, Hilary, is the dutiful one who stays in coastal Sorrento to look after their ageing father and raise her teenage son. The secrets, intrigues, family rivalries, clashes of ego and entitlement, all play well – especially with Celia de Burgh’s fine performance as Hilary and Jane Nolan’s turn as the literary lioness, Meg.

Also, reminding us of the lack of scrutiny of our national disposition in theatre these days, is the cultural commentary from Dick (Kevin Harrington in droll form) and his thoughtful chum Marge, nicely played by Beverly Dunn. Director Bruce Myles and producer Christine Harris have reminded us about a play with plenty still to tell us. It’s a pity that on first night the cavernous stage made some of the delivery barely audible.

Also from the early 90s comes Two Weeks with the Queen, Mary Morris’s adaptation of Morris Gleitzman’s novel for middle schoolers. It presents Colin Mudford, a boy whose brother Luke has cancer, who is shipped off to his English relatives for a break from things. The chance to petition the Queen and experts at a London hospital, however, reignites his plan to save his brother. It is only when he meets Ted, a young Welshman, and his  partner Griff, who is terminally ill with AIDS, that Colin learns that acceptance and constancy are sometimes the only ways to help.

In this lively version from  Windmill Performing Arts, director Wayne Harrison returns to a work he premiered in 1992. With Mark Thompson’s jaunty set decorated with cartoonish images of Sydney and London and sumptuous lighting from Nigel Levings, the cast of seven present a cavalcade of characters, many toppling into caricature, as Harrison juggles the seriousness of the play’s themes of death and dying with the hectic antics that dominate the production. Kristian Schmid is triumphantly  comic as the nerdy cousin Alistair, but it is the thoughtful performance as Colin, from the talented Xavier Samuel, that carries the show. Unsentimental, precise and convincing in the role, he provides the X- factor that this slightly time-wearied production needs.

Also with a sibling theme is Unspoken, a solo work written and performed by Rebecca Clarke. In a subtly crafted narrative she describes her reaction to the  birth of her much younger brother Julian, who suffers from congenital  brain and motor injury. While it is not simply biographical, Unspoken explores some taboo territory as Clarke confides her reactions to the challenges of brothers and boyfriends, family and freedom –  and her eventual return to a steadier self. Rebecca Clarke has made an exceptional debut here. Unspoken says much that we rarely hear and, in this production directed by Wayne Blair and Teresa Bell, it is beautifully written and realized.

“Plenty to tell us” The Adelaide Review, No.296, July 14, 2006, p.14