Bakehouse Theatre. Adapt Productions. 25 Jul 2015
It's good to have a dose of David Williamson from time to time, just to dip into the styles and mores of yesterday's Australia. So much has changed and yet so little.
The Perfectionist retains its currency by depicting a 70s academic couple in a highly competitive marriage. They are both obsessed with their PhDs and a delusional sense of the importance of it all. They also are being very progressive, experimenting with open marriage. The play begins in Denmark where the wife, Barbara, is hiring a male babysitter for the unseen children - a charming bleeding heart leftie called Erik. Husband Stuart, a smug and unimaginative man, has a good academic post and is endlessly engaged on a PhD in which he seeks unattainable perfection. After nine years and three sons, it is still not done. Barbara thinks it's time she had a turn to get hers done. And thus, as the couple returns to Australia, are the roles reversed.
In my memory, it's a fairly sharp and pithy play about some pretty awful people, a classic old Williamson streaked with ironic wit. This revival does not quite match up with the pace and edginess of remembered productions, though it may tighten up as the run progresses at the Bakehouse.
While Cheryl Douglas holds the mood and character of the play well as Barbara, ironically it is the director Ross Vosvotekas casting himself as the male lead which is the key problem. He is not the right actor for that role and his delivery comes across rather like a reading. He loosens only in final scenes. Chris Knight makes a fair fist of Erik with a very interesting accent while Kim York and Rick Mills work well as the long-suffering, flawed old parents.
Amanda Jane Bell clearly has had fun with the 70s costumes. Stuart's flares seem to have been arduously added to modern strides. Erik's wide trews are floppy long. Barbara and Shirley have some terrific floaty outfits and clearly everyone has tried hard.
The set is another story. It starts in 70s orange. Very orange. Barbara is wearing a matching orange gown as well. Oddly, when the family moves to Sydney, they have a dramatic decline in aesthetic taste. The paintings are screamingly atrocious in this broad living room set.
By accident or by design, Adapt has presented the audience with some interesting challenges to carry them through possible lacklustre moments. One is a hanging chess game played into a head-spinningly impossible position which one can't help but keep trying to solve. Another is wondering why Barbara appears to be reading the same book for about a year. Another is pondering why the parents take their champagne from dessert dishes. Yet another is contemplating why the academic's domestic roster looks as if it has been done by a 12-year-old.
These mysteries, along with a veritable hit parade of 70s music blasted out merrily amid the myriad scene changes, give the show another strand of entertainment value. And the play itself, of course.
The Perfectionist remains an interesting and engaging play which still, with issues such as open marriage and parenting, provides substance for a pleasantly provocative winter's night out.
Samela Harris
When: 24 Jul to 8 Aug
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
