Tommy Murphy's 2006 adaptation of Timothy Conigrave's 1995 posthumous memoir has been a theatrically engaging delight since its first production at the Stables theatre in Kings Cross (where parts of act two are set)- playing all around Australia, and with runs in the West End and the US. But this is the first time it's played on Murphy's home turf, where he got his start growing up in Queanbeyan and studying at St Edmunds - we can probably blame the complications of performance rights and the somewhat conservative programming tendencies of a lot of Canberra's theatres (plus possibly the flatter-than-they-should-have-been ticket sales for his earlier work "Strangers In Between" in its season at the Q).
Murphy's adaptation takes the memoir and brings out the latent theatrical qualities in it - Conigrave's emergence as a performer and a writer is an ongoing background in the story and here it's given full life, with elements of his life blurring into performances, auditions, drama classes, and rehearsals. But the meat of the story is the beautiful, engaging story of two young men who discover each other in high school and can't bear to be parted until death hits in brutally - the unlikely-yet-true story of love found between two very different young men in a catholic school and maintained over 15 years, surviving through parental bigotry, youthful experimentation, different career goals, and HIV diagnosis, only parting at a hospital bed with John's final breath. It's an honest love story, and Conigrave is brutal in his honesty about himself - his infidelties, inconstancies and sometimes unbearable precociousness, not ever able to stop himself from hurting the man he loves, equally honest about the effects on the mental state of both John and Tim as HIV develops into full-blown AIDS. Murphy's adaptation takes delight in giving this a strongly era-specific background as Tim emerges from high school into the undergraduate gay societies and then the wider gay communities, blundering through the politics, the emotional landmines, and the self-justifying arguments that the infidelity isn't really hurting anyone.
This project is clearly a director's dream for Jarrad West - having been involved in local productions of four of the great gay plays of the last 40 years - "Angels in America", "Laramie Project", "Normal Heart" and "Beautiful Thing" - and with a strong theatrical style that's made multiple use of puppets - "Home at the End", "Avenue Q" and last year's "Hand to God", this is absolutely slap bang in his wheelhouse. And he does not disappoint, giving the show theatrical verve and focus, as Tim and John's love story is backgrounded by four skilled performers slipping between roles across genders at reckless speed as everything from grotesque teenage boys to campus radicals to parents to fellow-NIDA-students to nightclub dwellers to friends and lovers. There's an assured knowledge that just having an actor stand a certain way, wear a scarf at a particular length and angle, and speak with specific elocution will instantly scream "Acting Teacher at NIDA" and an avoidance of any additional complications that could get in between the audience and the story - a pure service of the text.
The cast is strong throughout - Joel Horwood drives the story as narrator and protagonist Tim, letting him be brash, foolish, open-hearted, and ultimately unforgettably moving in his final monologue. Lewis McDonald as the more reticent John has the strength to make every word, every sound that comes from him count - it's never in doubt that his love for Tim is deep and strong even as he criticises Tim's choices. Joe Dinn commits to every character, from harassed shopping-centre entertainer to two very different fathers to campus radical in full-bodied joy. Amy Kowalczuk similarly commits, whether as sympathetic friend Juliet realising her crush on a gay boy is not going to get reciprocated, a grotty teen boy, an anguished new-romantic or the aforementioned round-vowelled-NIDA teacher. Grayson Woodham is this productions surprise package for me - I've not seen him in anything else before and after this I want to see him in a whole heap of things - everything he does, from playing a primary-school acquaintance to a free-thinking mother to a carer friend of Johns is deeply considered, real and strong. Tracy Noble rounds out the cast with strong compassionate performances as a mix of mothers, friends, therapists and one-particularly-intimidating-lesbian.
To wrap up, this is a major Australian piece of work finally getting its Canberra premiere by one of Canberra's best directors using some of Canberra's best actors. It's an emotional ride that will take you through joy, anger, heartbreak, hilarity and sober brutal truth. It's a triumph.
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