AND NO MORE SHALL WE PART
AND NO MORE SHALL WE PART, Griffin Theatre at the SBW Stables, July 29-September 3, 2011. Photos: Brett Boardman.
There are aspects of life that are at once irresistibly fascinating and supremely intimate. Birth is one; death is the other. We most often know quite certainly about the former – nine months or thereabouts and it’s going to happen ready or not – but death is something else. Sudden unexpected death, either from illness or accident, is shocking; a death foretold (“I’ve got six months”) is shocking in the first instance then other emotions kick in. And many of us have dealt with or at least know about dealing with these things But it’s what happens when the person with the death sentence decides to take matters into her own hands that concerns And No More Shall We Part.
Bit by bit, by way of flashes back and forward, we learn that Pam (Linda Cropper) is facing a certain and terrible death. Her illness will soon render her helpless and in unrelievable agony; she doesn’t want that, moreover, she can’t face that. She is brave enough to know she doesn’t have the courage to go through such an ordeal. She wants out and she’s acquired the pills to do it.
Don (Russell Kiefel), her husband of many years, is simply demolished when she breaks this bit of news. He feels betrayed, abandoned, and is disbelieving. She can’t mean it; she can’t want to leave him. Their subsequent argument about which is the selfish one of the two feels authentic in its tentative, bickering irritation and the flashes of wry humour that can only come from years of togetherness and understanding.
Tom Holloway’s play won the 2010 AWGIE for Best Play and the production’s director Sam Strong wanted to program it for Griffin after seeing the first staging in the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2009. As the two-hander, 85 minute play tenderly progresses, it becomes clear why. The honesty of the writing and Holloway’s acute ear for the dialogue of a relationship under unimaginable pressure is remarkable. And it’s why I began this by referring to the intimacy of death: it’s almost an intrusion into the most profound privacy.
The Stables stage is miraculously transformed into Pam’s suburban bedroom and the couple’s home through a design by Victoria Lamb (lighting by Verity Hampson) that has the audience in it with them. That’s only partially because of the physical closeness of the space, largely it’s because Lamb has created a place that’s both stylized and realistic. So the drama (not real) and the story (not real but real, if you see what I mean) are compressed and rendered vivid in the extreme.
Sam Strong and his two famously fine actors do wonderful things with this play. The stop-start, half finished sentences of habit and everyday speech are masterfully handled by Kiefel – who has most of them to deliver. His helpless bewilderment in the face of impending doom (he can’t imagine being without Pam even though he knows it’s inevitable) is very affecting; as is his outrage that she could consider taking her own life without consulting him and getting his agreement.
Cropper’s Pam is a gently powerful figure, even as she seems physically fragile to the point of disappearance. It’s obvious that she’s been the leader of the two and her compassion for Don and understanding of his plight is keen. At the same time, we see how single-minded she is and that she has already considered every possibility and argument. And paradoxically, her warmth and ordinary niceness seem so heartfelt it’s implacable and chilling.
That paradox is at the heart of Don’s bemusement: she is both the irresistible force and immovable object and as it dawns on him what he is facing – what she intends – his response is as plausible as one might imagine. And that’s one of the most intriguing and impressive things about Holloway’s play and what many were talking about afterwards: we might like to think we’ll be brave, gracious, sensible, whatever when faced with one of the Big Questions. Truth is, however, that until it happens we have no idea what we’ll do; or not do.
In extremis love may crumble, love may grow; fear may overwhelm, fear may be conquered; bravery may come out of nowhere and elevate the least likely person to heroism. And sometimes heroism is about not being brave, but in all of this, we really don’t know until it happens. And that slowly becomes crystal clear in And No More Shall We Part.
Holloway has taken one of the hardest and least predictable situations two people could ever find themselves in and explored how they face it. Although so mundane on one level – cups of tea are made, dinner is eaten, and desultory conversations range from unremarkable to penetrating. And all the while a portrait of love is being painted in all its tones: anger, sorrow, beauty, sweetness, humour, nondescript, special and – ultimately – totally recognizable. And No More Shall We Part isn’t easy viewing and may be too hard for some; but it is utterly absorbing, unexpectedly funny in places and exciting in the way it immediately generates thought and consideration. Compelling, honest, humane and utterly watchable. Not to be missed.
