THEATRE
Written by Patricia Cornelius, by Melbourne Theatre Company
At Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, until 28 October 2023
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***1/2
This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 30 Sep 2023. KH
 |
| Ian Bliss, Lucy Goleby, Maude Davey, James O'Connell, Angourie Rice. Photo Sarah Walker |
In her new play, My Sister Jill, Patricia Cornelius’ idiosyncratic dialogue features Australian vernacular laced with vivid, lyrical imagery and an emotional urgency that is matched by the physicality and dynamic energy of Susie Dee’s direction.
Adapted from Cornelius’ novel of the same name, the play is a provocative, family drama that tracks the lives of an ordinary, Aussie family as the parents and five children contend with the aftermath of World War Two and the challenges and opportunities afforded by the 1960s.
Youngest child, Christine (Angourie Rice), who often acts as narrator in the play, hero-worships their dad, Jack (Ian Bliss), a survivor of brutal, Japanese POW camps, and she urges him to retell his gruelling stories of escape, survival and misery. Older sister, Jill (Lucy Goleby), has a more cynical and realistic, but bitter view of their father whose war trauma has made him volatile, mercurial and cruel, particularly to his oldest son, the sensitive Johnny (James O’Connnell).
Jack’s behaviour is so unpredictable, shifting in a heartbeat from cheerful play with his family to raging and shouting irrationally, that the children fear him, and his long-suffering wife, Martha’s (Maude Davey) attempts to soothe him and protect the children are futile.
The opening scenes are lively and ebullient, with playful kids skittering across the stage, leaping in and out of the doors and windows of the shell of a weatherboard house (Designer: Marg Horwell).
The play might better be entitled My Dad Jack, because Jack is the core of this family’s story and the catalyst for all action, including the departure of each child from the family home over the duration of the play. Every action is connected to Jack and his war experience is eerily echoed in the arrival of the Vietnam War and his son Mouse’s (Zachary Pidd) conscription and his ensuring separation from his devoted, identical twin brother, Door (Benjamin Nichol).
Bliss is magnetic as Jack and exposes the character’s complexity and vulnerability, shifting in a blink from playful to passionate, fraught, damaged or dangerous. His portrayal of Jack’s rage is genuinely frightening at times – not only for the children on stage. Meanwhile Davey provides the perfect foil for his menacing behaviour, as Martha, the mild, warm and ceaselessly loving wife and mother.
The other five of these versatile actors are totally credible as children, and they all find the joy of childhood in their young characters, as well as the transition to doubt, angst and struggle that accompanies burgeoning awareness, maturity and resistance to parents.
Dee’s direction is deft and lively, making Cornelius’ vivid language sing, her characters human and the stage a vital, vivacious and compelling place.
It is
difficult to adapt a novel for the stage, with its multiple narrative threads
and passage of time, and this adaptation succeeds in many ways. It is most
effective in its first half when the family narrative is compressed in a short
time period when the children are young. In the latter part of the play, the
action gallops ahead in time and place and leaps between characters’ individual
story
lines, which fragments the narrative and dilutes the emotional intensity
of the family drama.
My Sister Jill is a thought-provoking and captivating production that challenges the audience with its themes, characters and staging.
by Kate Herbert
No comments:
Post a Comment