There’s nothing quite like the love a father has for his son. Even when said son is a bit “cheerful”. Harry loves his son, Jeff, more than anything, and his support for his son’s gay lifestyle is as wholesome as anyone could hope for. We are introduced to the father and son duo living – mostly – in harmony with one another as they each navigate their own love lives.
John Rosen puts on an outstanding performance as the charismatic Harry. An outrageous flirt, but first and foremost father to Jeff, he is the embodiment of a typical Australian father, who simply wants his only son to be happy and fulfilled in life. John fills the stage with his presence, balancing the heavy topics with easy one-liners to keep the audience on the precipice between emotionally misty eyed and cackling with laughter. Harry is everything any queer child could want in a parent – supportive, caring, and a touch too overbearing when it comes to the potentially transmittable diseases.
Harry’s son, Jeff, captures the audience’s attention as soon as he strides onto the stage. Matthew Chant treats us to an exemplary performance at not only showing Harry’s confidence, but his insecurities, his desires, and his love for love. Harry is a typical Aussie tradie – a little rough around the edges but a sweet, soft toffee at heart. Matthew carries Harry through the emotional turmoil of a young man seeking love, and shows the audience exactly what he thinks of his dad’s habit of overstepping with an terrific use of facial expressions and body language.
To add to the turmoil of the father and son, Julie Quick is carried into the audience’s attention with her bright personality and her melodramatic moments. While her moments on the stage are short-lived, she reacts with and to John as though they have been working together for years. Their characters’ flame burns as brightly as their disagreement, and poor Harry is put into a terrible position between his love interest and his son.
Not nearly as bad as Greg, Harry’s love interest. Much like Julie’, we don’t see him on stage much, but he quietly and shyly inserts himself into Jeff – and consequently, Harry’s – lives and hearts. Be prepared for Christopher Cordeaux to tear yours out as Greg slowly reveals his home life situation to Jeff.
With a simple set of a typical Australian home living room, the scenery doesn’t change rapidly, but the small changes – and one set change – that are undertaken are performed smoothly, and paired with a fun soundtrack for the audience to listen along to. The set immediately felt like home; cosy, inviting, and lived-in. Not worn or lacking any decorations, as one might expect with two men living together, but warm and happy. Keep your eyes open whenever cast move off set through the “front door” or into the hallway, for even those spaces have been considered and well dressed.
The lighting was well-timed and provided a natural, warm feeling for the space. This can be said for the soundtrack too, both of which did a fantastic job of providing the required ambience for the space without being noticed in any negative way.
Filled to the brim with second-hand “my dad is so embarrassing” scenes, plenty of laughing out loud, and beautiful, wholesome scenes, “The Sum of Us” is fun, emotional, and a beautiful story worth the watch for every straight and queer person alike.
“The Sum of Us” has a two-hour runtime with a 20 minute interval.
Trigger Warnings: mentions of homophobia, discussions of sexual intercourse, swearing, drinking onstage
To book tickets to The Sum of Us, please visit https://www.galleon.org.au/html/theSumOfUs.html.