Summer of Harold

Sets are always a problem at the Ensemble. The ‘thrust stage’ – with audience on three sides - makes everything unusual. The actors relish being right in the centre of the action, but set designers can have difficulty in establishing the scene using a straight, flat background. It’s especially tricky with Summer of Harold: three one-act plays with widely differing settings, no interval, two actors. 

The audience gathered before a giant wall of props, a display of objects pertaining to the three playlets on show – which include a visit to a posh house in London, a not-so-posh flat in Sydney and a ‘lookout’ somewhere in the NSW Blue Mountains. From time to time we get individual items on the wall brilliantly illuminated, with pin-point accuracy.

This then is the setting for the three short dramas by local author Hilary Bell that the two excellent actors Hannah Waterman and Berynn Schwerdt play out for us, singly or together. 

In the first, Hannah plays Janet, remembering her 18-year-old self on her first visit to London. She and her friend Alison, both straight out of Hobart Teacher’s College, have a magical month looking after writer Harold Pinter and his wife Lady Antonia Fraser, while their regular housekeepers take annual holidays in Spain. Cricket bats and coffee mugs are lit.

The second play, ‘Enfant Terrible’, features Schwerdt as artist Gareth in his long battle with his unnamed friend, ‘The Great Man’, who steals his girlfriend and gradually rises to prominence over him. Many items get lit up here.

For the third play, ‘Lookout’, there’s a change. From above comes a simple rope defining the scope of the lookout that the two actors must now share in the Mountains. It’s an excellent device, changing the audience’s view of the whole setting, and so is the barrage of items that are now momentarily lit.

Set Designer Jeremy Allen and Lighting Designer Matt Cox must take full credit for their work here: the dancing illuminations are first rate. 

Author Hilary Bell has had great fun assembling these bits and pieces into an evening of real drama. Also excellent is director Francesca Savige, making a memorable return visit to the Ensemble.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Jaimi Joy