The Harp in the South Parts 1 & 2

This epic adaptation of Ruth Park’s famous trilogy of novels about love and life in the slums of Surry Hills is a triumph.  

Actor and writer Kate Mulvany spent three years forging generations of the Darcy family and their neighbours into five and half hours of compelling, heart-warming theatre (excluding intervals).

The storytelling is so fluid, the transitions from crowd scenes to vignettes across David Fleischer’s revolving stage so seamless, it looks like director Kip Williams has been working with Mulvany since she started. 

The show moves like a musical and, indeed, is rich with Irish songs, hymns and evocative sound (thanks to the composition, design and music direction by The Sweats, Nate Edmondson and Luke Byrne).  Music sings of cultural identity and community, and mostly it’s Irish strugglers, overflowing with pathos and defiant cheek, who are at the tender heart of this Australian saga.

Park and Mulvany though focus on the women, poor, eventually disappointed, often beaten women but somehow unbowed. 

Heather Mitchell is fabulous as the irascible Granny Eny living at first in rural NSW where the love story begins in 1920, between her daughter, Margaret and handsome Hughie.  The capacity of all the women, when young, to trust in dreams of love, to invest in their men, is a cross-generational delight of the story, driving its romantic charm – and bawdiness. 

Hughie’s grand dreams take the couple to Surry Hills where Margaret (an intense Anita Hugh) eventually summons another female capacity, negotiating with loss and the erosion of love.   Hugh (Jack Finsterer) just turns to the bottle.

Contessa Treffone and Rose Riley are compelling as the two daughters, now post-War, opening us to more chapters of angst and longing, hope and social upheaval, as development makes The Hills residents homeless.

Part I bristles with theatrical energy, humour and an ensemble parade of nimbly drawn community  characters. Notable are Bruce Spence as the conflicted priest, Helen Thomson as the gold-hearted brothel madam, Guy Simon as the upstanding indigenous suitor now living with the daughters, and Tara Morice as the puritan tenant upstairs.

Scaffolding effectively suggests this homely terrace but it’s gone in Part II, the scrappy furniture scattered across an empty industrial space, and The Harp turns much darker.  The colour dims in Renee Mulder’s sensuous period costumes and Nick Schliepper’s fine lighting is now diffused. 

Here William’s production arguably loses some focus through the shadows. But by the end, the audience are on their feet – and rightly so.

Martin Portus

PREVIEW AND BUY THE SCRIPT HERE.

Photographer: Daniel Boud