Reviews

If you’ve wondered what Ibsen’s Nora Helmer did after she slammed that door and left her husband and three children, this sequel gives an answer.  An answer.  It’s fifteen years later and Nora (Marta Dusseldorp) returns – through that very same door.  She’s discovered that her husband Torvald (Greg Stone) never filed for divorce which means that they are still married and (under Norwegian law of the time, say 1895) she is in legal difficulties and could lose everything she has achieved over those fifteen years of independence.

In 1960 The One Day of the Year was rejected by the Board of the Adelaide Festival of Arts who felt that the play was too controversial and producing it could run the risk of insulting the RSL.  In July of that year the Adelaide Theatre Group, under the directorship of the inimitable Jean Marshall, mounted the world premiere of the play in Willard Hall, Wakefield Street. It turned out to be a production as controversial as the Festival Board had predicted and, with Jean and other participants receiving death threats, there was a heavy police presence on Opening Night.

There is nothing more certain, they say, than death and taxes. Mortality hangs over the head of each and every person on this planet. Some welcome it, some seek it, some fear it, some predict it, some ignore it. In this wonderfully challenging play The Man from Earth, we are faced with the question- what if we could be immortal? What would one do, faced with the prospect of living on and on, seeing those around you age and pass, but continuing to stay frozen in time?

Weaving elements of cabaret in with the classic musical, One Eyed Man’s Calamity Jane is a very different take to the 1953 film. It’s earthier, raunchier and more intimate. Seating a small number of the audience on the stage gives a sense of inclusion as well as providing ample victims for audience participation. Far and away the best thing about the show is the marvellous performance as Calamity Jane by Virginia Gay.