You Got Older

You Got Older
By Clare Barron. Directed by Brett Cousins. Red Stitch Theatre (Vic). 31st August - 2nd October, 2016.

Red Stitch’s strength as a company is finding interesting plays never seen on our shores and presenting them impeccably. Clare Barron’s You Got Older is one such play and her strength as a playwright is a deliciously left of centre view of the world, and family in particular. It may be offbeat, but it’s always truthful. Barron just sees the world through different eyes – eyes that don’t look back, or even forward, but are strongly rooted in NOW…the moment. Her writing is like a camera lens, capturing mood and emotion, but only in the moment, so that the comic and tragic co-exist, as they do in life. She’s not interested in backstories or character arcs except in passing. She writes IN life….not of it.

Mae…spinsterish but with kinky sexual fantasies, has lost her job and her lover (also her boss) and has returned home to nurse her father who is dying of cancer – or is it so that he can nurse her through her crumbling emotional world. Neither truly knows any way to heal the other and so there are long and awkward silences in the platitudes. These are overworked by director Brett Cousins but work really well for the first five seconds or so; it’s a pity they are laboured way past the point of maximum dramatic impact.

Emily Goddard (Mae) is a wonderful actress, full of depth and genuine connection to the character. It’s rare that an actress can persuade you that you’ve known a character all your life but Mae, with all her fantasies and frailties, her bravado and bravery, her uncertainty and strength, is very familiar to me. It’s a beautiful performance.

Francis Greenslade has made so many comedy appearances on television that we forget that he is a fine theatre actor. His performance as Dad reminds us of the depth and warmth he’s capable of. He is heart-breakingly real when he finally gives way to accepting that he is going to die.

This play could easily be a two-hander exploring father daughter relationships, but Barron goes for more than that, and Cousins’ casting is quite exceptional. There are siblings; just one brother (Matthew) played by Mark Yeates. Yeates is new to the scene, but boy, is he impressive! A totally naturalistic actor without visible technique (though he is well trained) he is worth seeing in any play, such are his strengths. He fits so perfectly within the family you would swear they have been together for years. The same is true for sisters Hannah (Penny Harpman) and Jenny (Eva Seymour.) Each is an individual and yet the quirks, the intimacies, the shared elements are always totally convincing as a family. It’s a stellar cast, rounded out by Jordan Fraser-Tumble’s fantasy cowboy - with just enough edge and cardboard fibre (intended) for us to recognise he is not part of reality, and Lee Beckhurst as the hapless Mac,  looking to get laid.

It’s always joyful to see good actors connect and relate to each other at this level. Barron’s play is gentle, everyday, in the moment, amusing and very real. There are no histrionics because there rarely are in life. We simply live it, minute by minute, and that’s what this play does beautifully.

Clare Springett’s lighting is a treat as always, but Sophie Woodward’s set is a little disappointing. Is this the same designer who gave us the innovative and awe inspiring set for Wethouse a year or so ago?

You Got Older won’t reduce you to tears or guffaws, but it will gently remind you of what it is to be human, and how important family is in that equation.

Coral Drouyn

Images: Emily Goddard & Lee Beckhurst and Emily Goddard & Francis Greenslade. Photographer; Jodie Hutchinson.

Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.