by
Hannie Rayson Melbourne Theatre Company
at Fairfax Studio
until February 12, 2000
Reviewer: Kate
Herbert
Hannie Rayson's play, Life After George, sneaks up on you.
It begins as a political-sociological analysis then segues into the deeper personal-psychological
mire of a dead man and the women in his life.
Peter George, (Richard Piper) a radical Marxist historian,
dies in a light plane crash. His three wives Beatrix, (Julia Blake) Lindsay
(Sue Jones) and Poppy (Mandy McElhinney) and his daughter, Ana (Asher Keddie) attend his funeral with George's close friend,
Duffy. (Rhys McConnochie)
Rayson's play has a complex construction which shifts in
time through George's chequered academic and emotional life. His politics are
the focus of the first half. We move between his early radicalism in Paris
during the 1968 riots, his academic rise in Melbourne in the 70's and his
opposition to the corporatisation of universities in the 90's.
George is a charismatic and romantic academic. He is
reminiscent of those heady 70's university days when lecturers slept with
students uncriticised and sex was part of the curriculum.
The play considers the despair of abandoned wives and their
children. It confronts the anguish wrought by a self-centred man who supported
the world but not those he loved.
It questions whether it is a feminist action for Lindsay to
surpass men in her academic career and whether the post-modern detachment of
the 90's young woman is a betrayal of feminism.
It criticises the demise of our academic institutions as
they fall victim to sponsorship deals and turn to vocational training. We are
producing business fodder, not educated citizens.
Kate Cherry's direction is swift, simple and seamless and
design (Richard Roberts) lighting (David
Murray) and music (David Chesworth) support her choices unobtrusively.
Blake is luminous, charming and funny as Beatrix, shifting
effortlessly between decades. Jones' edgy and ambitious Lindsay, is compelling
while Keddie is deeply sympathetic as the self-absorbed Ana. As Poppy a
less-fully developed character, McElhinney is both vulnerable and irritating.
Piper is riveting, attractive and maddening as George and
McConnochie, as the relative outsider, seems to be the only one truly forgiving
and completely loving of George.
By the final, profoundly moving scene, we know these people
in a peculiarly intimate way. We have been witness to their anguish and pain,
joy and love and the conversion of their politics to suit the 90's.
This is a thought-provoking play, on both the personal and
societal level.
by Kate Herbert
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