Theatre Guild. The Little Theatre. 10 Mar 2016
Debra Oswald is a contemporary Australian playwright with credits in theatre, film and television, with hits on stage like Dags, and Mr Bailey's Minder. The Peach Season was first presented at the Griffin Theatre in Sydney in 2006. She seems to enjoy writing about and for young people, so I would have hoped for a better Peach Season.
It's a pretty straightforward yarn. Two young adults on the lam and looking for picking work lob up to Celia's peach orchard. Celia's overly protected and horny 16-year-old daughter, Zoe, makes a move on the young man and runs away with him. And then the fretting really starts.
That might work if Oswald had done something interesting with the situation, but the action is linear, and everybody is very busy being worried and concerned and looking out for one another, and asking how they are - there is an overabundance of anxiety and little real danger.
Oswald leaves nothing to the imagination and characters' thought bubbles are explained to the nth degree. The character of Celia's mother, Dorothy - of Hungarian-like accent and descent for no apparent reason except to complain about the seasons - is superfluous. Her only duty seems to be to repeat in words what you just saw or are about to see in the play's action. Dorothy's role as narrator just slows things down and makes tedium. For example, she says, "at night, she lives in this dark place, so in the day, she can face the world." But we just saw that in Celia's face and body language. In fact, all the acting in this production is of a very high quality and I wondered if Oswald gives actors any credit at all for conveying thought and emotion, or credits audiences for getting them.
Emma Kerr as Celia has a wonderfully naturalistic carriage. But how long can we expect her judgmental disapproval and later concern over Zoe to be effective? Overprotective mothers and rebellious daughters are indeed strong emotive premises, but they are unchanging in this play and provide no dramatic velocity or intrigue. James Watson is an amazingly energetic performer. While his Kieran's psychological condition was complex and highly physicalised - and probably undiagnosible - his mercurial nature and charisma were a pleasure to keep company with. I can see what Zoe was attracted to.
Zoe, played with some veracity by Zoe Muller, and Kieran, as impetuous young loves incomplete without the other, are exemplary of real life.
Timothy Tedmanson's and Rachel Lee's design of a fruit-sorting shed was peachy. The large photomurals were a great addition. Director John Graham played a straightforward play straightforwardly - nothing juicy here.
PS James Watson of Year 12 is already a playwright. Two of his short plays will be presented by the Theatre Guild in April, and if they are as colourful and raw as his acting, I should think they would be good viewing, and you may be witnessing somebody on the way up.
David Grybowski
When: 10 to 19 Mar
Where: The Little Theatre at the University of Adelaide
Bookings: trybooking.com
