By Catherine Crowley and Heidi Silberman. The Street Theatre. 20 June 2014
There was nary a soul in Australia that wasn’t affected in some way by the World Wars, with people from all walks of life having to sacrifice and ‘do their bit’ for the sake of the country. It’s always fascinating to sit down with the men and women from the older generations and hear their stories of survival, and how their experiences so deeply shaped them.
‘The Home Front’, a year in the making through The Street Theatre’s The Hive program, taps into this everyday perspective of war – but is inspired solely by the rich and rather untapped history of our women folk keeping the home fires burning during World War One while the men fought in far flung places.
Though thoroughly researched for context, accuracy and ideas, ‘The Home Front’ is no carefully scripted series of bombastic monologues. It’s actually a wholly improvised affair, with new stories and characters for every single show – as created by the audience’s input.
On this particular night, director Heidi Silberman gave us Vye (Catherine Crowley), Elsie (Ruth Pieloor) and Maisy (Lynn Peterson) as our three names to mould into characters. After giving them personality traits, occupations, fears, living arrangements and a rough plot, the three performers then hit the ground running to create a story about the lives of these women set in the spring of 1916.
With such a daunting task to carry out, it was no surprise that ‘The Home Front’ started out being quite laboured and stilted while the actors got their bearings and sized each other up. However, after the initial bit of awkward ‘hot potatoe’ being played between the three women, they eventually settled into their roles and fashioned quite a lovely, though not terribly absorbing, theatrical piece.
Where there were historical inconsistencies or when the performers were finding themselves in a gridlock, Silberman would physically step in to challenge the status quo and drag them back into the appropriate mindset of the era – which worked quite effectively to inject some energy into the story and get the production back on track.
Undoubtedly, the highlight of ‘The Home Front’ were the times when humour was being employed, overall the show seemed to take itself a tad too militantly. It’s true the pressure of improvisation can make it difficult to relax when one is trying to focus, but there was definitely more room for throwing caution to the wind.
Overall, the woman kept calm and strong composure for the duration of the show and developed their characters convincingly as time went on. Crowley was especially strong in her stage presence, and was the anchor that kept the production grounded.
Given the unpredictability of the stage environment, it’s also hats off to lighting designer PJ Williams, who did a wonderful job setting the scene and creating some marvellously realistic dusks and dawns throughout. Likewise, the homely and rustic Australian homestead set and period costume design had quite the air of authenticity about it, and really drew you into the era.
‘The Home Front’ was a cosy and intimate night at the theatre that had a ‘simple pleasures’ feel about it that evoked memories of sitting around with the family listening to radio plays in days gone by. It was a pleasant way to spend a winter evening and to hear war survival stories from a woman’s perspective.
Deborah Hawke
When: 18 to 28 June
Where: The Street Theatre
Bookings: thestreet.org.au
