Travelling North
TRAVELLING NORTH, HIT Productions at Parramatta Riverside, 24-28 February 2009.
David Williamson is a playwright who attracts a particular kind of audience nowadays. These people love his social comedies about as much as they're not fond of such plays as The Removalist or the "verbatim community conferencing" dramas of a few years back (Face To Face, Conversation, Charitable Intent). And they may well be the kind who are going along to the current touring production of Traveling North.
First staged in 1979, Travelling North was prescient in telling of Frank and Frances, an older couple who, having met only very recently, have decided to (a) not get married (gasp) and (b) leave chilly Melbourne and move north to the sun (another gasp).
Frank and Frances were probably among the original grey nomads, except Frank (Terence Donovan) decides he wants to stay put once he finds a nice old shack and a good fishing spot. Frances (Sandy Gore) finds herself between a rock and a hard place: back in Melbourne her pouty daughters continue to exert the magnetic pull of emotional blackmail to come home and babysit and be mum. Frank, meanwhile, quickly forgets how to be a considerate, fun and gentle man and reverts (with odd speed) to cranky, chauvinist piggery. Then his heart starts playing up and suddenly Frances has an invalid to care for.
So far, so what? Well, being a Williamson play, there is much to it that is amusing and insightful: the attitude of the daughters to their mother taking up with a man is a mixture of appalled and disbelieving (who believes or wants to believe that their parents have sexual and romantic lives?) and, although it's the 70s (Vietnam is a background shadow) they are also lemon-lipped because the two aren't going to marry.
Ironically, there are aspects to the play that might have seemed anachronistic in 1979, that are now not particularly out of step. For instance, Frances is not altogether happy with her state of living in sin because she goes to church and it doesn't sit right with her. Five years ago such an attitude would have seemed downright quaint, now post-Howard's picket fence and in Kevin "disgusting" Rudd's puritanical outlook, it doesn't.
However, Frances is also modern enough to not let it stop her going for broke and heading off for a life with Frank. Their idyllic shack is soon invaded by Freddie, a garrulous neighbour from up the hill (Ross Thompson) and inevitably - given the state of Frank's heart - by the local doctor Saul Morgenstein (Lewis Fiander).
Freddie is the neighbour who drives you crazy by turning up at every moment - all inopportune - but with a heart of gold on his sleeve and a toolbox in hand for any emergency, which he can always sort with a merry quip and matter-of-fact expertise.
Likewise, Dr Morgenstein is a practitioner of the old school - house calls and homespun advice - but for some reason Lewis Fiander seems to be trying to channel John Gaden in this portrayal. And the only person who is any good at being Gaden is, funnily enough, Gaden.
That the two men start prancing about like billy goats when Frances hoves in view is predestined, but although long accustomed to being a doormat and at the beck and call of all in her life, these are two who she won't succumb to.
Meanwhile, back in Melbourne, the daughters, Helen and Sophie, (Kate Cole and Shelly Lauman) sulk and plot and scheme while Frank's daughter (Elizabeth Slattery) is their opposite in her niceness and acceptance of her father's new life.
Whatever and wherever you read about the play in its current incarnation you come across the phrase "considered by many to be one of David Williamson's most popular plays". It would be interesting to find out who "many" is, because it's hard to believe it on the evidence of this dog-eared and dog-tired production. It has apparently been seen in 33 venues to date since it began its national safari, but reviews from August last year (in Brisbane) suggest it wasn't any more sprightly then.
It's hard to work out whether the play really has reached its use-by date, or whether it would retain its charm in a well-paced production. This one, directed by Bruce Myles, appears to have only one instruction to the cast: "take a Valium before you go on". The pills only seem to work intermittently on the men so there are occasional bursts of manic energy at odd moments that have little to do with character or character development. And for unfathomable reasons, the young women in the roles of the daughters play them as if they are actually rather bad amateurs: stiff as boards and not nearly as useful. It's weirdly fascinating but surely not intentional.
The overall result is a generally somnolent event that would not be among the best efforts from the Woop Woop Amateur Dramatic Society. The set and lighting are drab and inconsistent - neither tropical nor Melbourne, functional or attractive. The costumes are similarly unlikely: Sandy Gore, god love her, looking as uncomfortable and unhappy as a mouse in a cattery, is muffled up in coat and scarf when arriving back at the shack where the chaps are in shorts and sports shirts - and so on.
On the other hand, there was much chuckling from the audience the night I went and people seemed generally appreciative of the entertainment. In the foyer during the interval and after the show, however, nobody discussed the play for even a minute. Once people rose to their feet to shuffle out it was over, and once out of the auditorium it was forgotten.
None of the more usual "well that was good/ rubbish/ disgusting/ fantastic" comments, or even "Ooh, isn't s/he lovely/ porky/ whatever". Just nothing: fast food theatre, enjoyed at the time and no taste left five minutes later. One of the more depressing experiences, but many - that enthusiastic unknown - liked it.
