The Train Tea Society

It’s not often one sees a play featuring a ‘live’ steam train (if ever) but Emily Vascotto’s The Train Tea Society gave audiences that undeniable thrill not once but twice during this sweet and affectionate work set in Ipswich during the First World War. Staged in association with the Queensland Pioneer Steam Railway at the historic Swanbank Railway Station, this site-specific piece of theatre presented as part of the Anywhere Festival convincingly transported us back to an earlier time.

Based on real stories of women in the Ipswich area who established a society that provided tea and knitted socks to soldiers on embarking and returning troop trains, Viscotti has written a tender salute to these genteel ladies. A young cousin arrives from Toowoomba to start training as a nurse and throws a spanner in the works when she declares the Train Tea Society’s activities are frivolous and add nothing to the cause of helping the troops in need. Her eventual enlightenment through a personal letter from the front earns the Train Tea Ladies an apology but not before we’ve been through a series of petty jealousies, tap-dancing fund-raisers, and several cups of tea.

The all-female cast of seven worked as a tight-knit ensemble throughout and vividly evoked the period with some stylish suffragette-era costumes by Jaymee Richards and Kristine Von Hilderbrant. Their Aussie flag aprons were a delight. Samantha Bull and Aimee Duroux as gossipy twins Nellie and Nora Cummings added punch to the scenario whenever they appeared. Their tap-dancing moment was a winner. Julia Johnson as head tea-lady Eliza Cameron handled authority with charm, whilst Wendy Spencer as her assistant Edith adeptly changed her opinion like a chameleon. Madison Kennedy-Tucker as snooty upper-crust snob Millicent played the bitch to perfection, Olivia Hall-Smith was a stylish outspoken trainee nurse Margaret, with Casey McCollow’s Bertha adding to a strong cast of professionals.

Only glitch in the production was Daniella Hart’s soundscape, which anachronistically mixed a Benny Goodman jazz track from the 1940’s (wrong era), with “Pack Up Your Troubles” a popular ditty from World War 1.

Despite the sound, young charismatic producers Gabriella Flowers and Emily Vascotto are to be congratulated on creating an evocative site-specific work that resonated with nostalgia. The train, with its belching clouds of steam and piercing whistle, may have been the play’s crashing chandelier or helicopter moment, but it was the actors who provided the warmth and humanity.

Peter Pinne