Highway of Lost Hearts, A Lingua Franca, The Q, 6-7 June and subsequently 14-15 June at Riverside Theatres Parramatta

 

(photo by Hannah Grogan)

The Road story has a long and proud tradition - you could say it dates back to Homer's "The Odyssey", via such material as "It Happened One Night", Steinbeck's "Travels With Charlie", Kerouac's "On the Road", up to "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" and beyond. It's a genre that lets protagonists encounter all sorts of people and events along the road, discovering fundamental truths about their society and themselves. Mary Anne Butler's play is a fine continuation of that genre, as a protagonist hops into a van with a dog and travels from the far north of Australia through various remote country towns, dealing with her own internal demons and the brutality of both the external environment as well as other people and her own turmoils. There's a risk in this kind of material that it can become very much a series of incidents, particularly in this case with a protagonist who doesn't go in for a lot of exposition about what's brought them to this point, but a combination of Butler's versatile writing, capable of both the height of poetic celebration and the depths of brutal realism, performer Kate Smith and musicians Abby Smith and Sophie Jones, a simple set of three drapes, three seating areas and a bit of spinifex by Annemaree Dalziel and Bekcy Russell and some powerful lighting effects by Becky Russell ensures that this is a beautiful and resonant experience, a personal story that is also universal - wide in scope but intimate in experience.

Performer Kate Smith is an engaging, strong presence, able to handle the shifts in script from joy to rage to sorrow to introspective, and from rhapsodic to starkly dramatic. We feel as she feels, and are completely drawn into the experience. Musicians Smith & Jones weave in and out of the story too, sometimes remote presences to the side, sometimes moving in close as observers, as companions, and as contributions to the mood and energy, sometimes reflective, sometimes driving the action.

This is a powerful new Australian play given a beautiful production and should be seen by anybody interested in exploring human nature, the world around us and the spaces within us.