Adelaide Festival. The Space. 14 Mar 2023
What a charmer!
Quick sticks. Grab a ticket now. Staff only half-joked that they’d need a shoehorn to fit the full house into the Space for the opening night of Maureen: Harbinger of Death. Clearly that mysterious “word” had gone out. This is the 2023 Adelaide Festival “sleeper”, the show not to miss.
And such a simple offering it is. One performer seated on a chair against a voluminous backdrop of kitschy old-school velvet drapery.
Upon the chair is a Jonny Hawkins who, with Neil Ranney, has devised this confection of pure Australiana. Of all things, it is an homage to old ladies.
Maureen not only is purportedly a friend to Jonny and to all the gays of Kings Cross, she is a quintessential old gal of the Bohemian school. She is a student of the society around her, a nurturer with a sharp eye, a big heart, and an hilariously caustic tongue.
In his brief introduction, Hawkins says she is actually a composite of myriad wise and wicked nonagenarians of his acquaintance, maybe some right here in the audience. Perhaps not. Maureen is a product of Kings Cross. She is as Sydney as the harbour and all those stinky tiled front bars on The Rocks. She has “that accent” with the drawn-out vowels, an affectation which is so, so Sinny. She is both an ornament and a relic of The Cross.
She lives on the fourth floor of an old apartment block, smoking, reminiscing, and celebrating the joyful mythology awakened by people’s stories.
In lieu of the young gay male visitors she so adores, she adopts a member of the audience as her gentleman helper. A lady never lights her own cigarettes. Respectfully, he proffers the flame and helps by offering around Jatz crackers from a huge tin. If a hostess can’t offer sandwiches…
And, he shares her little black book whence, as it is passed through the audience, Maureen calls for names to be read out, each name being catalyst to sagas of people loved and lost in her life. They are funny, sweet, and sour stories. Each one arresting in its own right, together painting a vivid profile of an Australian cultural landmark in its heyday.
It is so tempting to give examples but, after meeting Maureen, one feels that she is a pearl in a special Sydney rock oyster shell which must be opened fresh and alive to each audience.
She is an experience to be savoured in person and never to be forgotten.
She is a Festival gem.
Samela Harris
When: 14 to 18 Mar
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
