THEATRE: GWEN IN PURGATORY
- Author:
- Angela Bennetts
- Posted:
- Tuesday, 10 August 2010
I will hazard a guess that 99.9% of those walking out of Gwen in Purgatory will be shaking their heads with disbelief, muttering, that was my family, oh boy, how did he know … Admittedly, that’s the kind of prosaic statement that would make most critics, English teachers and university lecturers cringe the nation over. But please forgive me this once, because it’s just so true. Playwright Tommy Murphy (Saturn’s Return, Holding the Man) has spun a pitch-perfect if slightly quotidian story out of the simplest of ingredients; a fractured family (the Houlihans), a visiting Catholic priest, a new home (a clinical townhouse on the edge of Queanbeyan). Throughout one, unbroken scene we learn that the jittery postal delivery grandson Daniel (Nathaniel Dean) is experiencing a marriage meltdown, martyred daughter Peg (Sue Ingleton) is ready to shed the shackles of family obligation, and puffed-up son Laurie (Grant Dodwell) is carrying the load of their childhood guilt. Father Ezekiel from Nigeria (Pacharo Mzembe) is a gentle, smiling balm amidst the chaos – although as the changing face of faith and tradition, is suitably out-of-place. As the title suggests, the real star of the show is the doddering yet needle-sharp Gwen, a 90-year-old matriarch embodied with startling resonance by Melissa Jaffer. While the vision of an elderly grandmother (your grandmother, your mother?), stuck in all kinds of purgatory, is ultimately bleak – you leave laughing. What 90 minutes spent with your family doesn’t elicit similar complex reactions? Murphy balances the two expertly, like some kind of theatrical spirit level, using effortless humour and unaffected familiarity. Here’s another bet: this is destined to be an Australian classic.
Until Sep 19, Belvoir St Upstairs, 25 Belvoir St, Surry Hills, $35-57, 9699 3444, belvoir.com.au
Photo by Heidrun Lohr
Photo by Heidrun Lohr
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August 10th, 2010 @ 3:51 pm
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