Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson. Directed by Bruce Myles for
HIT Productions at Tuggeranong Community Arts Centre,
An excellent
play deserves excellent directing of excellent actors, and just desserts were
what we received on Monday night at TCA.
Hotel
Sorrento, Rayson's first major success in 1990, has justifiably become a key
modern Australian play. In short movie-like scenes, 8 characters' intertwined
relationships reveal the personal and the global complexities of their
lives. Everyone in the audience found
themselves recognising their own experiences and responding with emotions from
joy to sadness, as the central three sisters deal with
the past and the present. If you've missed this production, see the DVD of the
1995 film.
Though I liked
the film, I loved this production of the play.
On the small TCA stage so close to the audience, every detail of the
actors' expressions and body language directly communicated their feelings and
thoughts to us. Myles' directing and the
set and lighting design took our attention from character to character, from
within the house and garden to the jetty and across the world to London, all
linked with clear-noted guitar music (by Andrew Pendlebury), so smoothly that
we were transported into the world on stage as if it were the most natural
place to be. Figures moved in and out of
light and shadow, scene changes becoming a choreographed dance of movement and
stillness - the perfect model from which to learn the art of changing scenes.
All the actors
- the sisters Celia de Burgh (Hilary), Marcella Russo (Pippa), Jane Nolan (Meg,
whose novel Melancholy is short-listed for the Booker Prize), John Flaus (the
sisters' father), Jared Daperis (Hilary's son Troy), Roger Oakley (Meg's
English husband Edwin), Beverley Dunn (Marge, a new neighbour who recognises
Sorrento in Meg's novel), and Kevin Harrington (who publishes socio-political
essays about Australian culture) - formed a team of great strength, lifting the
play off the stage and into our heads and hearts.
This Hotel
Sorrento is a great success for producer Christine Harris and HIT Productions,
and proves the special value of the role of Tuggeranong Community Arts in the
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