St Jude’s Players. St Jude's Hall. 7 Aug 2015

 

The bar heaters glow aloft in the St Jude's Hall. The audience sits well rugged up. It's a cold winter's night in Adelaide.

 

Onstage, it is yet colder. It is winter in New England. Windows on the set show scenes of snow outside.

 

The characters of Rhode Island playwright Tom Griffin's play, Einstein and the Polar Bear, stomp in through the door complaining about and endlessly discussing the oppressions and beauties of the white winter weather. Indeed, introductory premise of the play is girl seeking help and shelter when car breaks down in a blizzard in an isolated and snow-besieged village.

 

What she finds is the most wonderful bookshop. Floor-to-ceiling books and then more books in substantial expanse - or so it becomes under the design of director Dave Simms.  This is one stunning set. It was created by a backstage cast of thousands and its substance and beauty stand as dividend to their loving labour. Books are real and books are painted.  With lighting, perhaps just a little too low, they enfold the eye in a gently claustrophobic spirit of fusty, antiquarian book obsession.

 

There's a desk or two, a couch and a big leather wing chair in which poor old Andy snoozes the days away in a mysterious stroke-affected otherworld. The one thing he remembers is meeting Einstein in a Rhode Island coffee shop when he was a young man in a blue suit. In snatches of consciousness, he reiterates this fragmented memory. It is thematic to the play.

 

It is his son Bill's bookshop. He's a famous writer who has become a recluse, no longer writing but occasionally selling rare books online. His human world now consists of dad, the affable local postman plus an ice-fishing local mechanic and his seemingly naive wife. 

Then urbane Diane Ashe steps out of the blizzard and into the shop looking for help. 

 

There follows an engaging dance of new acquaintance in which stories are exchanged and a certain chemistry is aroused. Offers of a place for her to sleep elsewhere are rejected. She stays with Bill.

 

The postman, the mechanic and the wife come and go knocking on the door, letting it stand open way longer than anyone in a real New England winter would permit and, indeed, wearing much lighter winter clothing than anyone in New England would countenance.

 

Dad is ever-present, if not in his chair, ringing a bell from another room. He is loved but endured by his son. It's a fatalistic interdependence. He understands more than he indicates. He obeys requests to make hot chocolate or change his clothes. Norm Caddick depicts this old man's twilight world and his periodic announcements about Einstein. It is one of those exquisite occasions in which a small role's significance is made large through performance. In this case, it is the actor's compassionate understanding, underplay and outreach beyond the fourth wall. It is a sublime performance which will long linger in the mind. 

 

Allison Scharber gives fine balance to Diane, breezy and confident and yet somehow shadowy. One does not understand why until the denouement. Adam Tuominen has never given a bad performance. His voice and poise always find the mark of the character to hand. He is an interesting and moving Bill.

 

Andrew Horwood, on the other hand, gives a spirited characterisation of the mechanic Bobby, but seems way too old to be the reluctant rake of the script. Shelley Hampton flits sweetly as the child-like wife. And handsome Peter Davies, as the town busybody of a postman, sports an accent and inflection so original it takes a while for the audience to tune in. 

 

It's here director Simms needs to make a change or two, bring the actor forward more often. He needs to puff up the costumes to convince that it is really New England out there. And he needs to bring the lighting up.

 

This is the Australian premiere of Einstein and the Polar Bear and yes, there is a polar bear.

 

 It is not a great work of theatre but it is an interesting work. The characters are well-defined and complex. There are threads of symbolism and dashes of humour.  It is well-rounded.

 

It niggles in the mind that it must have been inspired by J.D. Salinger who was, indeed, a famous writer recluse in that very neck of the woods, but there is no mention or reference in either the play or the programme notes.

 

Either way, this show is a decent way to find shelter on a cold Adelaide night.

 

Samela Harris

 

When: 7 to 15 Aug

Where: St Jude's Hall, Brighton

Bookings: trybooing.com