Chalkface is a glimpse into the lives of six staff members from the fictional West Vale Public Primary School.
The two protagonists in the play, Pat Novitsky and Anna Park are polar opposites. Pat is a weary, cynical 56-year-old teacher and Anna is a 22-year-old perky graduate teacher, full of enthusiasm.
Pat has been teaching at West Vale for many years and has given up trying to make a difference in teaching and in the lives of the students. Her weariness is evident from the moment she steps into the staff room on the first day of Term One, dragging her feet with shoulders hunched. Years of bureaucratic red-tape, the constant lack of funding and having to deal with difficult parents appears to have taken a toll on her and that bright light within her she once had is now dim.
Anna on the other hand has full of ideas on how to improve the school for the teachers and for the students. On her very first day she is already suggesting new teaching methods that land her on the wrong side of Pat. The two clash throughout the play but as they get to know each other on a more personal level they develop a common ground.
The other characters are Denise Hart, the somewhat ditzy pre-primary teacher; Cheryl Filch, the former bank worker now school office manager who guards the office supplies with an iron fist; Steve Budge, who is convinced a parent of one of his students is stalking him; and lycra Principal Douglas Housten.
Rather than acts in the play they have terms which I thought was quite a clever way of delivering the performance. With each term more layers of the characters unravel.
Set in the staff room of West Vale, the set designer has done a brilliant job in presenting a run-down and outdated staff room with cracks in the walls and basic office furniture. This was a dead give-away that West Vale is a public school and the lack of school funding is a major theme throughout the play.
Natalie Burbage is phenomenal as the grouchy Pat Novitsky and Sophie Harvey-Lissienko is equally as good as the bright Anna Park. The other cast members Louise Fishwick, Cameron Leese, Maree Stedul and Christopher Hill all deliver strong performances and the camaraderie amongst the cast shines through in their performances.
There is a strong message conveyed in the play which many of us are perhaps already aware of and that is teaching is a hard profession. Teachers are underappreciated and underpaid. But as the director Vanessa Jensen mentions in her Director’s Notes, playwright Angela Betzien describes Chalkface as a “love letter to teachers” with relatable teacher issues presented in a humorous manner.
To book tickets to Chalkface, please visit https://melvilletheatrecompany.au/current-production.
Photographer: Curtain Call Creatives
