Dream Home

Dream Home
By David Williamson. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Director: David Williamson. 31 January – 28 March, 2015

David Williamson calls the Ensemble Theatre home. Every year there’s a new Williamson drama/comedy, sometimes more than one. Packed houses and rolling laughter invariably ensue, even when, as of late, his themes have tended towards seriousness (The Jack Manning Trilogy, Nothing Personal, Managing Carmen, etc).

Now the Ensemble’s 2015 season begins with two solid months of Dream Home, an out-and-out farce this time, directed by the great man himself. No doubt the house will be regularly filled, though this is not among his more cherishable works.

A young couple, composer Paul (Guy Edmonds) and TV commercials wannabe Dana (Haiha Le) — she’s well pregnant — buy their first-ever apartment in ‘Shangri-La’, an ironically named block near Bondi Beach. The neat setting by Marissa Dale-Johnson cleverly includes views of local high-priced real estate.

Going by recent Williamsons, one might have expected at least some passing discussion about Sydney apartment prices or politics or ethics. But, no, Dream Home remains a sex-obsessed romp, nothing more. The front door swings open and shut. Paul and Dana’s lustful immediate neighbours barge in uninvited at regular intervals.

There’s Sam (Justin Stewart Cotta), a bearded, bald, tattooed, Lebanese bouncer and his glamorous, unhappy wife Colette (Libby Munro), who just happens to be Paul’s former girlfriend and who is immediately ready to get started again.

There’s frustrated married couple Henry (Alan Flower) and Qantas stewardess Cynthia (Olivia Pigeot), both looking for kinky sex, but not with each other. And there’s cake-baking kleptomaniac Wilma (Katrina Foster), also with an eye for unlikely action with Paul.

The high-energy acting under Williamson’s confident direction is attractively led by Edmonds, who is rarely off the stage. Cotta’s gold-watch-flashing neighbourhood terrorist reveals his own sexual insecurities with considerable subtlety.

There are many good jokes. The one about Julie Bishop brought down the opening night house.

Frank Hatherley 

Images: HaiHa Le and Guy Edmonds as Dana and Paul & Olivia Pigeot and Alan Flower. Photographer: Clare Hawley.

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