Sunset Strip

Suzie Miller rocketed to fame with the success of her plays, Prima Facie, about a lawyer fighting for justice after being sexually assaulted, and RBG, about the progressive US judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg. New Theatre has made a smart choice to stage her earlier work, Sunset Strip, premiered to acclaim by Griffin Independent in 2017 but I think, crazily, it hasn’t been seen since.

Women are again centre stage as two damaged sisters meet at the old family home, which once overlooked a sunlit lake – but which now drought and an upstream dam has dried to dirt.  It’s home still to Phoebe, an anxiously optimistic, perhaps former, drug addict who hopes soon to have her kids back from welfare, and her widowed Dad who is struggling with dementia. 

Her sister, big city lawyer Caroline arrives and, although battered by breast cancer, still belittles the unreliable Phoebe, especially when she reveals plans to marry the very next day the local drifter, Teddy.  Soon we learn that Caroline and Teddy used to be lovers.

So we’re all set for a familiar genre, a family strip down to past resentments and jealousies curdled by new disappointments and secrets.  The relief in this psycho drama is Miller’s great ease and truth of dialogue and her relish for the wit amongst the pain, plus having an intimate ensemble who can give it genuine blood.  

This production from director Annette van Roden is almost there. Molly Huddon embodies a lovely Phoebe, fretfully full of hope; and Shane Davidson convinces as the caring Teddy.  Erica Nelson is suitably brittle as Caroline although her revelations are under-projected, while Vincent Melton captures Dad’s mental decay but less his deep grief at no longer being able to help his daughters.

Van Roden’s set design overly struggles to be naturalistic, robbing the play of a bigger horizon, and leaves actors sometimes awkwardly moved.  Yet this Sunset Strip delivers an amusing, thoughtful and tender experience, notably supported by Casey Moon-Watton’s lighting and Jay Murrin’s gentle sound design.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Chris Lundie