Stage: Finding connections

Strangers in Between
by Tommy Murphy
director Adam Spreadbury-Maher
with Alex Ansdell, Matthew Mitcham, Stephen Connery-Brown
design David Shields
music Aaron Climgham
lighting Richard Lambert
Golden Goose Theatre, Camberwell • 19.Sep-7.Oct.23 ★★★★

While Tommy Murphy's 2005 play is now a nostalgic period piece, it also continues to powerfully capture the community between three very different people who find themselves creating an offbeat family unit. So while it's set in a specific place and time, what it reveals about the queer subculture continues to resonate, especially as it sensitively explores issues of internalised homophobia.

It's set in Sydney's once-rough Kings Cross suburb, as runaway teen Shane (Ansdell) finds a job in a bottle shop and begins to learn about life in the city and also explore the world as a young gay man. He flirts awkwardly with customer Will (Mitcham), beginning a tentative relationship. And older customer Peter (Connery-Brown) befriends Shane as well, showing him the ropes. As the months pass, Shane begins to confront his past, most notably his sometimes violent relationship with his brother Ben (also Mitcham), and he also begins to plot a way forward with the help of his new friends.

Focussed on Shane's inner journey, the play is structured in a series of scenes that offer insight into his personality and emotional life, revealing some seriously frightening mood swings that are a result of damage inflicted by both child abuse and societal prejudice. This emerges dangerously in the hatred he has for himself, frightened of what his sexuality means. So while the play unfolds with lightly comical elements, the dialog is often piercingly intense.

Ansdell is excellent in a demanding role as a lost boy trying to find his footing in a place that scares him. Even in some shocking mood swings, his open-handed performance is hugely sympathetic, offering beautiful connections with the other actors. Connery-Brown brings just the right balance of pathos and sassiness to Peter, a middle-aged man who is world-weary but still kicking. And Mitcham has a terrific matter-of-fact physicality as the muscly Will, a young guy who is confident in who he is, but perhaps sees something worth pursuing in Shane. 

The intimate staging at the Golden Goose uses lighting and cleverly designed sets to pull the audience into the deeper issues the play is grappling with, never becoming preachy or sentimental. Detailed touches in the direction, such as food preparation and working taps, add a zing of connection. Perhaps the only thing missing is some more honest lustiness, as the one sex scene is played coyly for laughs. But the nakedly emotional final moments are gorgeous. 

For information, GOLDEN GOOSE THEATRE >

photos by Peter Davies • 30.Sep.23

Shadows on the Stage: Like father like son

The Sum of Us
scr David Stevens • dir Gene David Kirk
Above the Stag Theatre, Vauxhall • 9.Sep-4.Oct.15

The plucky Above the Stag Theatre deploys its now-expected professionalism in this revival of David Stevens' award-winning 1990 play, which was adapted into the 1994 film starring the great Jack Thompson and a young Russell Crowe. Not only are all four of the cast members well up to the challenge, but the set designers have outdone themselves to create a detailed Melbourne home in a very tiny space, plus a terrific last-act transformation.

Set in the late 1980s, the story centres on Harry (Stephen Connery-Brown, above left), a widower who lives with his 24-year-old rugby player son Jeff (Tim McFarland, right), more like odd-couple flatmates than father and son. Harry is slightly too supportive of Jeff's gay sexuality, encouraging him to get out there and find a man to love. When Jeff brings home the shy nice guy Greg (Rory Hawkins), Harry's enthusiastic acceptance is a bit much at a time when Greg is unable to even mention sexuality to his own parents. Meanwhile, Harry has registered with a dating service, through which he meets Joyce (Annabel Pemberton), the first woman he has gone out with since his wife died a decade earlier.

The play features continual to-audience monologs that reveal the complexity of Harry's and Jeff's inner thoughts. It's a mannered device that slightly diminishes the strong camaraderie between the characters, but it continually offers pungent insight between the lines. Connery-Brown is particularly strong as Harry, a cheerful guy who just wants his son to feel free to be himself inside his own home. And while Hawkins sometimes over-eggs Jeff's cheeky attitude, he's a likeably complex young man who realistically feels just as trapped by his father's encouragement as Greg does by his father's cruel bigotry. Both Hawkins and Pemberton bring all kinds of edges to their smaller roles.

Most significant is how the play uses honest interaction mixed with internal soul-searching to explore the impact we have on each other, generation to generation, as we search for our own happiness. No one wants to go through life alone, but perhaps it's even more difficult to watch someone we love fail at romance. Where this story goes is darkly surprising, both intensely moving and properly hopeful. And this astute production brings out the script's emotional kick in a way that feels organic and effortless.