The Chapel Perilous

For those, like me, who come to Dorothy Hewett's work for the first time it is necessary to take a deep breath before writing a Stage Whispers review of perhaps her greatest play. How could I have missed her scope, her grandeur, her quest for freedom in a nation uncertain of its standards?

This revival of Hewett's key work, lovingly directed by Carissa Licciardello and played on a solid chapel setting designed by Kyle Jonson, is in the right theatre. The New Theatre in Newtown's main, grubby, narrow street is a home of the Left and, from the early 30's, a communist one at that. Hewett's 1971 masterwork does not seem out of place.

In its autobiographical way, it tells the story of free-spirited Sally Banner, her intense school days, her lovers, attempted suicide, marriage, and love affair with communism. It must be one of the great female roles in all Australian theatre and I'm sorry not to have confronted it before.

Sally, in blazing red dress and never off the stage, making all the disastrous mistakes you pray she might just for once avoid, is here played by Julia Christensen. She is superb, unbowed, making the most of every opportunity.

Hewett imagined the play to include a chorus of 30, and there are moments where a communist hymn or a schoolgirl rendition of a pre-war favourite would have lifted the action. Licciardello has a cast of nine and the men in Sally's life are all played by one of them (Tom Matthews).

Alison Chambers and Brett Heath give a good account of her ever-anxious Mum and Dad, and Meg Clarke makes an interesting Judith, the schoolgirl apple of Sally's restless gaze.

With wodges of poetry and tons of romantic imagery, Sally's reckless, arms-open-wide stance shows the victory of sexuality and freedom over the ever-present forces of repression.

Frank Hatherley

READ THE FIRST PAGES OF THIS PLAY AND BUY IT HERE.

Photographer: Bob Seary