Abigail's Party
Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh; Ensemble Theatre, 19 March-2 May 2009; www.ensemble.com.au
Thirty-odd years ago Abigail’s Party, along with Nuts in May was one of Mike Leigh’s early big comedy hits. It’s very different from the work with which he’s most associated in Australia (the Belvoir improvisation Greek Tragedy and the movies and Vera Drake) yet it’s typical of his interests in human foibles and failings and is a brilliant piece of play-making.
Abigail’s Party is, on the surface, a comedy of tiny, playful observations and monstrous characters. But it’s also a trap for the unwary because it’s so much more than that, and the Ensemble’s new production is splendidly up to the task of this deceptively simple work. As is so often the case, casting is key to success and in Queenie van de Zandt we have the actress who was born to play Beverly, the hostess with the mostest and far too much besides.
Beverly is a controlling, interfering, well-meaning, love-starved, status-hungry, tragic monster. She’s been likened to Hyacinth Bucket by some but that’s misreads her. Hyacinth is a grotesque, Beverly is not. The groans and gasps from the audience as she blithely steamrollers through her social duties tells you how well realised and recognised she is: if you don’t know a Beverly you’re not being honest. Van de Zandt is wonderful as the excruciating, self-styled queen of the street and her journey through the play is subtle, painful, exquisitely observed and wickedly hilarious.
The party – 15-year-old neighbour Abigail’s first – takes place in a house up the street and is only heard and referred to. The actual party, with hideous “nibbles” and constantly refilled glasses, is in Beverly’s lovely lounge room with a (real) leather three-piece suite, a print of Tretchikoff’s Green Lady on the feature wallpaper and fashionable burnt orange nick-nacks in the kitchen. Beverly has invited newly-moved in neighbours Angela and Tony to welcome them and Abigail’s mother, the divorced Susan, is also there – a refugee from the “teenage party”.
Beverly’s husband Laurence is late home for the occasion and is still in his suit when the guests arrive – a cause for a smiling snipe from Beverly that sets the tone for the evening. Laurence and Beverly have been married three years and are on an upward social trajectory even as their relationship sours into incomprehension on her part and loathing on his; as Brian tries to play “light classical” for the guests, but Beverly insists on Demis Roussos and Tom Jones.
Caught like a rabbit in the headlights of the roiling if genteel maritals, Angela is torn between awe for her new friend and plain, simpering fright from the minute she surrenders her crocheted poncho to Beverly. Tara Morice is wondrous in the role of the timid, intimidated, silly and hopeful creature – funny, touching and hyper-real. As her hubby, Tony, Ben Ager is a silent, smouldering symbol of working class rage at his patronising and aspirationally snobbish neighbours.
Laurence is also an angry man and Brian Meegan portrays the fury as coming from so deep inside he is paralysed by it to the point of emotional and physical disaster. Like so many of the men and women in Mike Leigh’s work, it’s the women who are the powerful presences even as the men ostensibly control them. Nevertheless Beverly and Ange are wives for whom “women’s lib” is still a bit of a joke and these two are vividly drawn and deeply authentic.
Elevated on the one hand by her position as the only real middle-class member of the group, yet on the other she is the (gasp) divorced woman, Susan (Julie Hudspeth) is an enigma for the others and a fascinating bit of character balance by Leigh. Like the others she is buffeted by the force of Beverly’s personality but she remains a yardstick for the general descent into chaos that inevitably flows from the well-stocked bar.
The sardonic and dreadful key to Beverly and Laurence’s home, aside from grim wallpaper and burnt orange, is the many, many bottles of spirits that occupy the Scandinavian-style credenza; and beneath them, the proudly displayed shelf of books. There is a plastic-wrapped Complete Works of Shakespeare and a set of Readers’ Digest Condensed books (Dickens). The design (Graham Maclean) and lighting (Matthew Marshall) is among the best seen at Ensemble in a while.
Director Mark Kilmurry has beautifully fitted together all the pieces of the character and comedy jigsaw puzzle. It would be tempting to play it for easy laughs, but he seems to instinctively know where the play is coming from – and where the actors should be going – and they go there in an often brilliant display of (pardon me) ensemble acting. It pays off in spades. Abigail’s Party is a rare and shocking treat of laughter and outrageous ill fortune. And Queenie van de Zandt takes another step to stardom.
NB: I attended a preview. By the time you read this I’ll be in the USA.
