The Last Train to Madeline

Produced by theatre company Fever103, the play ‘The Last Train to Madeline’, written by Callum Mackay, directed by Hayden Tonazzi, produced by Harry Dowling, was staged at The Meat Market in North Melbourne. What instantly drew me to this play was that it’s a love story. As a poet and writer who writes politically through the lens of love, I had to see what this is all about. 

I’ve never been to a play at The Meat Market. It was used in the 1880s to trade meat as the name suggests, but now it stages all sorts of events including theatre. I was impressed with the space and professional theatrical layout. It made me want to come back and see more shows here. 

When the set appeared on stage, designed by Savanna Wegman, I was even more blown away. I loved all the crawling plants and the architecture. It had a very nostalgic, dream-like quality, the earthy tones and layout reminiscent of a southern-European courtyard – very picturesque.  

Luke and Madeline are primary-school friends and start to hang out together at age eight in the 1980s. The play does have a bit of a retro feel to it, which is amplified by old televisions placed around the set which show the audience the scene title and also images of Luke and Madeline filming each other throughout their time together. 

The play depicts different points along their relationship focusing on when they are eight, seventeen and twenty-three, each scene providing a different turning point, and then circling back multiple times so we get a clearer picture of their dynamic, the complexity of both characters and what went wrong. Madeline dreams of a big artistic career to escape her troubled life and Luke is in awe of her and wants to give her everything she wants. 

The actors, Ruby Maishman and Eddie Orton, did an exceptional job of carrying this text-heavy script, full of twists and emotional turns where every scene required them to change time periods and thus emotional states. The intensity building with each scene. As an actor and performer myself, I understand that these were really big roles to fill and they both did really well.  

I did feel that while the eight-year-old narrative was so endearing and heartfelt and innocent, Luke and Madeline felt more like ten- or twelve-year-olds than eight-year-olds. I one hundred percent forgave the play for this though, because it was an exceptionally ambitious play to pull off, simply because it was attempting to unpack a very complex subject – love. Love that spans years and affects you to your core, and even when you are not in touch with the person you cannot shake them from your being and you hate them so much but you love them so much. It depicts well the emotional walls we put up to protect ourselves, how we try to please the ones we love in spite of our own needs; it spoke to the power of hope and love, and letting go with love, knowing that person will stay with you forever, and never letting go of the hope that you will see them again. 

Like I said above, although I found the play slightly text heavy and tuned out at times because I struggled to keep up with the narrative, I still felt this play on a very emotional level and I was crying by the end. I feel this play will sit with me for many years to come, and that I will refer to it in my mind when I am feeling alone and missing a love I cannot be with.  

Koraly Dimitriadis

Photographer: Liv Morison.

Koraly Dimitriadis is a Cypriot-Australian bestselling poet, writer and performer and the author of Love and F—k Poems, Just Give Me The Pills and She’s Not Normal. Her theatre show “I say the wrong things all the time” premiered at La Mama.