Avalanche: A Love Story

‘It’s up to you’ — the consistent refrain from specialist doctors and nurses when asked if your (very expensive) IVF treatment should be continued. An 8^th round of treatment for a 45-year-old woman over the edge of middle age? ‘Well, it’s up to you.’ And the woman in Julia Leigh’s play must make her way home passing the Bentleys in the hospital parking lot. 

This nameless woman is played to the hilt on the broad Roslyn Packer stage by English actor Maxine Peake in a 90-minute solo performance. Not quite solo, for she shares the stage with brief appearances from two youngsters, referred to as Childlings, ghostly dreams of what might be. They fit perfectly into this very tight production.

Originally published as a book, Australian-born Julia Leigh’s searing memoir was turned into a play for London’s Barbican Theatre when planning for their month-long Fertility Festival about ‘the science of making babies and modern families’. Another Australian, director Anne-Louise Sarks, became involved, as did(brilliant find!) Maxine Peake, who had her own 4 rounds of IVF treatment to add to the mix. Clearly, this 2-week visit to Sydney was part of the deal.

Peake plays a screen writer and sometime director, someone with enough spare cash, who becomes hopelessly enmeshed in the business of having a child. She has finally parted from her much-loved husband Paul, an off-again on-again partner from her youth, and is thrashing about in her 40ish pain: ‘I want to stab him!’ she cries. At the same time, she wants to create a baby with him. Cue the doctor with the expensive methods, the Trans-Vaginal Ultrasound, add-ons, etc.

All is presented in an office setting, white walls, chair at table, for the first hour. Then, very slowly, the walls start lifting. At 80 minutes the desk collapses in a heap of rubble. At the end of the play, in a brilliant, staggering coup de theatre, the advertised avalanche arrives — and the monologue has been swept away. Listen to me, the woman calls to the audience, I really want you to understand!

Maxine Peake, as the essence of female responsibility, delivers her strong, driving need for children, before being overwhelmed by the avalanche.

Frank Hatherley

Images: Maxine Peake in Sydney Theatre Company and the Barbican London’s production of Avalanche: A Love Story ©The Other Richard.