Luke Carroll, Celia Pacquola and Tony Cogin. Photo: Philip Gostelow.
The Torrents is a vignette of an Australia of yesteryear, even the sepia-coloured tones of Renee Mulder’s wonderful and detailed set seem redolent of an old photograph. It has an interesting history. Director Clare Watson describes it as the “one that got away” as, in 1955, it was joint winner of a prestigious playwriting prize, sharing the honours with the much better-known Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Why did Lawler’s play get all the subsequent glory? Could it possibly be because Australia wasn’t ready for a play about a woman who thought she was as at least as good as a man, if not better, and quite able to work in a man’s world? Or that the playwright, Oriel Gray, was not only a woman but one with Left-leaning, communist sympathies? Like Francis Urquhart, “I could not possibly comment.”
Back to the story. In the late 1800s in the waning Gold Rush town of Koolgalla, a certain J. Milford has arrived to take up the vacant journalist position at The Argus. But – shock, horror! – the “J” stands for Jenny. A female journo! Imagine? Cries of “resign, resign!” Jenny, played with quiet and cynical verve by Celia Pacquola in her mainstage theatrical debut, is not so easily discouraged of course, and begins work at the newspaper to the consternation of some, and the bafflement of others. (How’s this for a line: “I wouldn’t allow a woman of mine to work like a man, I’d keep her clean.”)
Gray’s feminist theme is reinforced by the tepid love affair that is meandering along between the somewhat lily-livered Ben Torrent (Gareth Davies) and the unquestioning Gwynne (Emily Rose Brennan), his intended.
Ben is the son of The Argus editor Rufus (Tony Cogin), who is beholden to its owner John Manson, played with full comic bluster by Steve Rodgers. To quote Manson: “When I put money into a newspaper, I expect my opinion to be at least considered.” At the very least, Mr Manson, sir.
Yes, this was written nearly 70 years ago. Not much has changed.
Which bring us to the other key theme in The Torrents. Luke Carroll is Kingsley, the optimistic and talented engineer, whose irrigation scheme could set the town right (the future lies not in gold, he says, but in fruit trees; cultivate the land, don’t mine it). The town is torn between protecting old interests and investing in the agriculture of the future (aka environmental sustainability). The staffers at The Argus have to pick a side.
Kingsley is also in love with Gwynne, while Ben is falling for Jenny, so everything is nicely tangled.
The Torrents is billed as a newsroom drama married to a screwball comedy and has been touted as “hysterically funny”. I did not find it so, but it does have amusing moments, both in its fabric and in the antics of some of the newsroom staff, notably Geoff Kelso as Christy, who raises quite a few laughs. It’s wry rather than side-splitting but it’s fascinating as historical comment.
Renee Mulder’s period costumes are also a delight. As she explains, this period was a transition from Victorian into Edwardian styles and, for women, although it was still a time of corsets and coveted hour-glass figures, skirts were losing their fullness (though not their petticoats). Attitudes, too, were on the cusp of slow change. The program notes reference the work of C Y O’Connor, who inspired the Kingsley character. O’Connor was Western Australia’s Engineer-in-Chief and his Goldfields Water Supply Scheme provided much-needed water to the goldfields (with a pipeline that is still active today).
This is a Black Swan Theatre/Sydney Theatre Company co-production, which premiered in Perth before arriving in Sydney. It is well done and well worth seeing, even if its shock value has diminished over the years.
At the Drama Theatre, until 24 August.
