Sydney Theatre

1 in 7

Waiting rooms, particularly those of the medical variety, can be emotionally fraught places. People sit waiting for information, test results, that may possibly change their lives forever. Vivien Thomas in her first one-act play for Manly Theatre Group has chosen a hospital waiting room as the setting for an ensemble piece that focuses on a confronting statistic: one in seven Australian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lifetime.

While an ensemble piece, much of the focus is on the character Tina, who we soon learn can be abrupt at times. In the first few minutes of the play, Tina clashes with the clinic counsellor (played by Ella Green), finding the professional’s demeanour too cool for her liking. It is clear that Tina is very stressed; she has been called back to the clinic because of a shadow on her mammogram. She’s a busy mother, evidenced by the phone calls she receives in the waiting room from her children asking ‘where’s my wetsuit?’ and ‘what’s for lunch?’ Tina, like so many other women, doesn’t have time for cancer; too much depends on her being well.

Early on in 1 in 7, tears flow. Alongside Tina in the waiting room, is a woman distraught at the thought that her sister, who has left the room to receive her results, may have cancer. The other waiting women rally around her providing comfort in her moment of need. When her sister emerges, the news is good: she does not have cancer. After the pair leaves, the other women reflect on whether it is better to put on a brave face or to cry, letting out the distress one feels obliged to contain. It’s a question that runs through the play. How do we deal with our emotions when confronted with our mortality?

Thomas has created a group of characters that anyone might expect to meet in any waiting room in Australia. Tina, played by Trish Donoghue, is a gutsy, salt of the earth Australian mum who is prone to rants about the cost of living and climate change. Liz Jewell plays Joan who has just retired. She and her husband have booked a trip of a lifetime to Europe. Will cancer upend her neatly planned future? Particularly poignant is Karen Pattinson as Mrs Collins. Her bombastic behaviour in the waiting room is a cover for a woman who is deeply distressed. She demands her test results, saying she does not have time to wait. We are again reminded of the life pressures so many women juggle each day. As Tina says: Be kind. We don’t ever really know what another person is going through.

Manly Theatre Group’s Artistic Director Kathleen Walker, Vivien Thomas and the cast have done a great job in producing a performance that is highly topical and emotionally moving. Like a memento mori, the play is a reminder of how fragile and precious our lives are. We are reminded to support each other in our darkest moments, reaching out rather than retreating into the straitjacket of stoicism. The play is also a timely reminder of how stretched so many Australian women are by caring for others. Let’s remember to care for them too.

The Audition Helpers

Carlin Hurdis’ one-act play is a very tongue in cheek comedy that captures the back stage bitchiness of an amateur theatre group. Auditions are being held for a production of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Two unnamed ‘helpers’ stand in a room coordinating the audition process. The helpers soon reveal themselves to be jaded, ‘never-been’ actors; both are on the wrong side of fifty, now relegated to behind the scene roles. Their dialogue is peppered with catty attacks masking the insecurity that so much of the acting world breeds.

The Audition Helpers might be described as meta-theatre. Certainly theatrical allusions are in plentiful supply throughout the piece. The helpers name-drop like there is no tomorrow, passive aggressively competing with each other as to who knows who in the world of (amateur) theatre. Particularly amusing is one auditionee’s choice to perform a monologue from Edward Albee’s satire The Goat—cue off-colour jokes about goats.

The cast clearly relish their roles in a particularly self-reflexive way. Both Gregory J. Thorsby and Frank Byrne capture the desperation of two over the hill actors determined not to be discarded. Their behind the scenes machinations lead to a particularly amusing (and sneaky) denouement. Alisan Smotlak is suitably over the top as the director who is clueless about what her helpers are getting up to. Danny Nercessian plays camp and goth perfectly doubling up as two very different auditionees. John Corrigan and Elaine de Jagger show great comedy chops also.

Hopefully we will see more of Carlin Hurdis’ clever work in the near future!

To book tickets to Two New Australian Plays (1 in 7 | The Audition Helpers), please visit https://events.humanitix.com/manly-theatre-group-presents-1-in-7-and-the-audition-helpers.

Photographer: Neil Thompson Rees

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