Louisa’s Dawn REVIEW August 4, 2022 **1/2

THEATRE

Written by James Howard

At La Mama Courthouse, until August 14, 2022

Reviewer: Kate Herbert 

Stars: **1/2

This review was first published in The Age Arts online on Friday Aug 5, 2022 and in print on Monday Aug 8, 2022. Click this link Louisa's Dawn and scroll to second review to read it in The Age online.

 

Gin O’Brien, Peppa Sindar. Mary-Rose McLaren, Tayla Harry, photo Darren_Gill

Australians will have heard of Henry Lawson, the renowned Australian writer, but few will know that his mother Louisa Lawson published The Dawn, a journal specifically for Australian women, between 1888 and 1905, employing 11 women to produce the publication.

 

James Howard’s play Louisa’s Dawn explores the courageous, relentless spirit of Lawson during the time she established her journal, published material challenging the status quo and faced rabid opposition from men. The male unions were outraged at the temerity of this woman who worked in the male-dominated printing industry, employed non-union women (women were not permitted to join unions) and supported women’s rights to vote and to earn money – rights now taken for granted.

 

The play is non-naturalistic in style, episodic and non-linear in structure and intentionally political in content after the style of agitprop (agitational propaganda) and workers’ theatre. While the story of Lawson and The Dawn is compelling, Howard’s script and Ann Chadwick’s production do not successfully translate the extensive factual, historical, political and literary material into a coherent theatrical whole. The script shoehorns content into dialogue, cramming it with facts and quotes making it informational and didactic rather than believable, natural dialogue.

 

The 60-minute production employs too many disparate, mismatched, non-naturalistic styles, including awkward physical comedy, clumsy machine-like movement, rousing union songs and musical interludes, Greek chorus, direct address to audience, reading of letters or lists of topics in the journal and reciting of Lawson’s own poem Coming Home.

 

An episodic structure can deliver a non-linear narrative covering multiple years, topics or events but Louisa’s Dawn lacks an effective dramatic structure, needs a stronger narrative through-line and a clearer chronology. The play would be enhanced by focusing narrative and stage action on a particular period or events, delivering information in direct address, deleting repetitious scenes and dialogue, and reducing characters, theatrical styles and devices.

 

The pace requires tightening, rhythm needs dramatic variation and scene changes are too slow. More could be made of the union’s anti-Louisa, banner-wielding demonstrations, her personal and public confrontations and the workers’ songs.

 

The acting is uneven, but Gin O’Brien is stately as the “tall, strong” Louisa, Tayla Harry is quietly supportive as her daughter Gertrude and Mary-Rose McLaren, playing a worker at The Dawn, sparkles in the background, making each action and short line credible. Adam Menegazzo and Kate Parkins provide entertaining musical accompaniment, the highlight being the audience singing Solidarity Forever. More audience participation in songs, please!

 

Louisa’s Dawn has the material from which to construct a theatrical work, but the patchy script and production do not do justice to the political intention, the story or its characters.

 

By Kate Herbert

Adam Menegazzo, Graham Maxwell, Mary-Rose McLaren, Peppa Sindar (background:Tayla Harry, Gin O’Brien) photo Darren Gill

Written by James Howard

Directed by Ann Chadwick

Music by George Williams

Performed by Gin O’Brien, Tayla Harry, Peppa Sindar, Mary-Rose McLaren, Graham Maxwell, Adam Menegazzo & Kate Parkins