Reviews

This clever play revolves around a dying patriarch and his two daughters as they act out an end of family era drama in an old Queenslander. The plot sounds familiar, but what makes this drama exceptional is that the characters are all so ordinary. There are no arrogant billionaires here, with siblings cowering in the background hoping to claim the prize. Instead, all the characters are normal, recognisable, but flawed and decent at the same time.

Playwright Devon Williamson is based at Detour Theatre in Tauranga, NZ, a coastal town just north of Rotorua.  It is just a hop, skip and a jump to Huonville from there. A season at Detour very much like a season at Huon Valley.

Williamson churns out one play a year. Many have the word “murder” in the title. Typically, they are set in one room, in a limited time frame. The cast is small and the characters wild and wacky but recognisable.

SunLive (The Bay News First) quotes Williamson on Tauranga audiences:

Violence is always present here, simmering, a constant threat.  Under the narrator’s ingratiating grin, under the humour.  It runs as a thread beneath this monologue: the tale of the ‘illegitimate’ son of a single mother in 1960s western Ireland. 

Tommy Murphy’s stage adaptation of Tim Conigrave’s compelling memoir dedicated to his great love, John Caleo, was premiered by Griffin Theatre in 2006.  The audience was a mess, laughing and weeping profusely, especially in the row with Tim’s family up from Melbourne; the book, the play and then the film were landmark successes.  Teenage sweethearts at a Catholic school, and together 15 years later, Tim and John both died from AIDS.