Tag Archives: Gavan Swift

High Society

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Hayes Theatre Co, September 7

Amy Lehpamer and the cast of High Society. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

Amy Lehpamer, sizzling in red, and the cast of High Society. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

High Society is set in the palatial home of rich socialites complete with swimming pool: quite a challenge in a 111-seat theatre.

But, true to form, the Hayes Theatre Co production solves it ingeniously. Set designer Lauren Peters has come up with four elegant, moveable arches and a clever reveal for the party scene. Lucetta Stapleton’s 1930s costuming, a few props and some sound effects (Jeremy Silver) are enough to complete the picture, along with Gavan Swift’s lighting.

The 1998 stage musical is based on the 1956 film High Society starring Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra and Philip Barry’s 1939 play The Philadelphia Story. It has a very funny script by Arthur Kopit and songs by Cole Porter, some of which were in the movie, such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Well, Did you Evah! and True Love, along with others of his that weren’t. Not all the lyrics relate as well as they might to the situation but overall it works a treat.

It’s the eve of Tracy Lord’s wedding to the rather pompous, dull George Kittredge. However, her younger sister Dinah is determined that Tracy remarry her first husband CK Dexter Haven, who turns up unexpectedly with a pair of reporters from Spy Magazine, Mike Connor and Liz Imbrie.

Helen Dallimore directs with a sure, light touch, telling the story with great clarity, while Cameron Mitchell’s choreography suits the period. In another ingenious touch, Dallimore uses a quartet led by musical director Daryl Wallis whose jazzy arrangements of the score work brilliantly.

Virginia Gay and Bobby Fox. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

Virginia Gay and Bobby Fox. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

Amy Lehpamer positively glows as Tracy: glamorous, tough and very funny when drunk, her singing, acting and dancing all perfectly pitched. Virginia Gay is sensational as Liz, who is quietly in love with Mike. Her comic timing is impeccable, her performance is full of delicious, surprising little details (the way she hesitates to articulate the word ‘you’ when singing “All I want is you” in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? just one of many) and she knows exactly how to deliver the songs.

Bobby Fox convincingly conveys Mike’s gradual softening as he falls for Tracy in a charismatic performance, while Bert LaBonté is an understated, rather melancholic Dexter whose charm grows on you.

Along the rest of the exceptionally strong cast, there are well judged comic performance from Scott Irwin as George, Jessica Whitfield as Dinah and Laurence Coy as the lecherous uncle Willy, while Delia Hannah is lovely as Tracy’s mother. All in all, divine.

High Society plays at the Hayes Theatre Co until October 3. Bookings: www.hayestheatre.com.au or 02 8065 7337

 A version of this review ran in the Sunday Telegraph on September 13

Daylight Saving

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Eternity Playhouse, November 4

Rachel Gordon and Ian Stenlake. Photo: Helen White

Rachel Gordon and Ian Stenlake. Photo: Helen White

When Nick Enright wrote his 1989 rom-com Daylight Saving, it was a last-ditch effort. Had it not been a success, he had threatened to turn his back on playwriting.

But the play, which premiered at the Ensemble Theatre, was a big hit. Enright went on to a stellar career (cut sadly short when he died from melanoma in 2003) with writing credits including Cloudstreet, The Boy From Oz and the film Lorenzo’s Oil. He also wrote the book and lyrics for the musical Miracle City, currently enjoying a brilliant revival at the Hayes Theatre Co.

Darlinghurst Theatre Company is now staging Daylight Saving (with support form the Enright Family). It’s been lovingly directed by Adam Cook, who has chosen to keep it in its original 1980s time period, but the play itself feels rather dated and lightweight. The humour doesn’t zing in quite the same way that it did back in 1989 (the biggest laugh of the night is a sight gag: a huge, brick-like mobile phone) and its themes of loneliness in marriage, the passing of time and seizing the day don’t have quite the same traction – perhaps because we’ve heard them discussed so often.

Well constructed and elegantly written, the play is stylistically not dissimilar to Alan Ayckbourn or David Williamson. There are some deft, very funny one-liners that the cast deliver with consummate timing,  but the laughs are slow to build and rather sporadic.

Felicity (Rachel Gordon) is a successful restaurateur on Sydney’s northern beaches. She lives in a gorgeous house overlooking Pittwater and would seem to have it all. However, her husband Tom (Christopher Stollery), who manages a top-ranking but temperamental young tennis player Jason Strutt (Jacob Warner), devotes so much time to work that she is feeling increasingly lonely and under-valued.

This time, Tom has forgotten their wedding anniversary as he heads off overseas yet again. So when her old flame Joshua Makepeace (Ian Stenlake), to whom she lost her virginity in America as a student, appears out of the blue Felicity contemplates a romantic night. Somehow the fact that it’s the night that the clocks go back, gifting them an extra hour together, makes it seem even more special.

But plans for a candlelit lobster dinner go awry with a procession of visitors interrupting the evening.

Hugh O’Connor has designed a bright, gleaming set that captures the feel of a comfortable, advantageously positioned waterside home, beautifully lit by Gavan Swift, and his costumes have 80s elements without feeling like a parody.

Helen Dallimore, Ian Stenlake, Belinda Giblin, Rachel Gordon and Christopher Stollery. Photo: Helen White

Helen Dallimore, Ian Stenlake, Belinda Giblin, Rachel Gordon and Christopher Stollery. Photo: Helen White

Cook has gathered a strong cast, with the women in particularly fine form. As Felicity, Gordon gives a performance that feels effortlessly natural and real, her disappointment lying just beneath the surface. Belinda Giblin is absolutely on the money as Felicity’s well-meaning but interfering mother: a North Shore widow with fake tan who arrives like a whirlwind, dispensing advice, inedible cookies and deliciously dry witticisms, delivered to perfection.

Helen Dallimore is also extremely funny as Felicity’s rather boorish next-door neighbour Stephanie, whose boyfriend has given her up for Lent and who is so wrapped up in her own indignation she is oblivious to what’s going on around her.

Stenlake offers the kind of winning charm that Stollery’s grouchy Tom lacks, while Warner plays Jason’s bratishness to the hilt.

Cook has found as much humanity in it as he can, but at the end of the day it all feels rather slight: a play that hasn’t quite stood the test of time but one that is still gently amusing.

Daylight Saving runs at the Eternity Playhouse until November 30. Bookings: www.darlinghursttheatre.com or 02 8356 9987

A Doll’s House

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Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre, July 26

Matilda Ridgway and Francesca Savige. Photo: Seiya Taguchi

Matilda Ridgway and Francesca Savige. Photo: Seiya Taguchi

When Ibsen’s A Doll’s House premiered in 1879, the door that Nora slammed behind her at the end of the play sent out shock waves.

It’s not going to generate the controversy that it did then – not in our society anyway – but this finely tuned Sport for Jove Theatre Company production keeps you on the edge of your seat.

As for the play’s relevance, you don’t need to look further than the all-too-regular news stories about men threatening, even killing wives and children, as a result of ugly separations to know that many women still find themselves trapped by men, circumstances and lack of money.

Director Adam Cook takes a traditional approach with a period production that is faithful to Ibsen. It’s clearly been staged on a relatively tight budget but it is so beautifully paced and performed that it reverberates with a clarity and truthfulness that is utterly absorbing.

Hugh O’Connor’s simple set features a plain back wall, inset with three doors, which becomes slightly translucent under certain lighting (Gavan Swift) so that we glimpse the comings and goings of the characters. Carefully chosen pieces of furniture suggest the period, along with O’Connor’s costuming.

Matilda Ridgway’s lovely performance as Nora is at the heart and soul of the production. Initially she is giddily girlish as she plays at being the doll-like wife and little songbird her husband Torvald so frequently refers to. But as reality intervenes in way Torvald would never have thought possible, and the bars of her gilded cage seem to close ever tighter around her, a different Nora begins to emerge. Her final stance is deeply moving.

Ridgway’s face is wonderfully expressive as emotion after emotion chases across it. She behaves in a slightly different way to each of the other characters – Torvald, her old friend Kristine Linde, who has fallen on hard times and arrives out of the blue hoping to find work now that Torvald has been promoted to head of the bank, family friend Dr Rank who has long been in love with Nora and is now facing death, the housemaid Helen who has effectively brought Nora up, and her young children.

And then there’s Nils Krogstad from whom Nora borrowed money to fund a year in Italy that saved Torvald’s life. Not only does Torvald not know where the money came from but Nora forged her father’s signature on the contract. Since then she has been struggling to pay the loan back without Torvald knowing. Now Torvald has decided to sack Krogstad from the bank and give his job to Kristine.

Douglas Hansell is excellent as the morally upright, pompous Torvald, who is misogynistic and domineering without ever realising that he is being anything but the perfect husband. Some of his comments about his wife’s role in life (namely to look after him and their children) triggered gasps from the audience, but Hansell plays it without becoming a one-dimensional villain. His love seems genuine even if he has no idea who his wife really is beneath the identity he has created for her.

Francesca Savige is quietly contained as Kristine who believes Nora needs to grow up and take responsibility for what she has done, Anthony Gooley is suitably creepy as Krogstad, while gradually revealing the troubled man beneath, Barry French is warmly genial as Dr Rank and Annie Byron touching as Helen.

Thom and Bill Blake are cute, cheeky, confident and convincing as Nora’s young sons (roles they share with fellow ATYP students Massimo Di Napoli and Noah Sturzaker).

From start to finish, the production keeps you riveted. At the performance I saw, a young woman behind us, who presumably didn’t know the play, was almost hysterical with excitement at the ending, which had clearly taken her by surprise and knocked her for six. Thrilling.

A Doll’s House is at the Seymour Centre until August 2.