I will never cease to be amazed at what can be done with the right amount of creative genius, even in a small space, and I was particularly blown away as we entered the theatre at Old Fitz. Mia MacCormick’s Dixon & Daughterâs set was immediately impressive with a two-storey set up with two upstairs bedrooms, one open to us with the double bed clearly belonging to someone who has lived there for many years and the familiar bedspread that told the same story. Thereâs a kitchen in the background, an old style living room (again, with the iconic upholstery of the era on the sofa). We see all the childhood remnants such as rocking horse in storage underneath. Itâs a typical house that has seen generations. A house we might all remember but the shell of it is peeled away in parts, symbolic of the here and now and fuzzy, messy, reminiscing that we are about to be pulled into.
Topaz Marlay-Cole’s lighting and Nicky Pardesi’s sound design engage throughout. Darkness pools around the moments that need it most, and characters are isolated by a single source when they are at their most exposed and vulnerable. The transitional soundscapes hold us in the uncomfortable space between scenes, refusing to let us settle, while the pauses punctuated by light shifts carry their own quiet weight. Clever and intentional.
Mary, played by Vanessa Downing, has just returned home. Her granddaughter Ella and daughter Julie are ready to surprise her, while youngest daughter, Bernie quietly prepares them for the reality that Mary is “in a mood.” In these early scenes, Deborah Bruce’s script establishes the architecture of the family with deceptive lightness: Julie as the scapegoat fleeing a bad relationship and fighting an alcohol dependency; Ella as the playful peacemaker trying to offset the formidable dark cloud her grandmother carries into the room. Mary is no-nonsense, wanting nothing more than to get home and back to life. We soon discover she has served six months in prison for something connected to her deceased husband, and from that moment, the unravelling begins.
Downing’s Mary is formidable. There is no softening of the character’s abrasiveness, no easy bid for sympathy, just a woman carrying decades of damage and struggling to articulate the remorse beneath the bluntness.
Linda Nicholls-Gidley as Bernie embodies the daughter who must hold it together at all costs, and we see that fight written into every moment. Sarah Jane Starr arrives as the estranged stepdaughter Tina/Briana, larger than life and glamorous, having stepped into her power and intent on helping Julie do the same. Starr plays the light and shade with real skill, making Briana’s complicated journey entirely her own. Romney Hamilton’s Julie is the loveable screw-up, all flightiness and docility in the early scenes, and then, when the drama reaches its peak, Hamilton delivers a performance that takes your breath away. You genuinely do not see it coming.
Danette Potgieter’s Ella makes her own quiet pivot, moving from the warmth and playfulness of the opening to something altogether more grounded and affecting when the moment demands it. Leigh is a character that Mary introduces into the mix, at first I wondered about this writing choice, I wasnât sure we needed this character from the school of hard knocks who was providing a lot of comic relief (played joyfully by Rylea Ellis), but I realised that Mary had to bring this outsider in to disrupt the roles and stories running and Rylea plays this very well.
Director Kim Hardwick’s work is full of specificity. Every exchange feels immediate, every relationship fully inhabited. But what struck me most was the blocking. Each character had their physical place within the history of this intergenerational story, allocated to a particular space unless the action required something different. They were connected but always isolated, until they weren’t. It was a brilliant choreography of power and position, making visible what the dialogue could only gesture at.
An all-femme cast is its own kind of power, and this one is clearly working together and holding one another with real care. The dark themes are handled with tenderness and unflinching honesty in equal measure.
Dixon and Daughters is not an easy watch, but it is an important one. It will speak to anyone who has lived as a woman, and to anyone who has loved, nurtured or been shaped by one. This is a story that needs to be told, and the Tiny Dog Productions team has told it with exactly the courage and care it deserves.
To book tickets to Dixon And Daughters, please visit https://purchase.oldfitztheatre.com.au/EventAvailability?EventId=1201.
Photographer: Campbell Parsons
