Di Adams, Katrina Foster, Di Smith and Helen O’Connor take a road trip. Photo: Lisa Tomasetti
‘All for one and one for all’, that’s the pledge Susan, Frances, Elizabeth and Jackie make each other as schoolgirls. We meet them as adolescents, wondering about the facts of life and how best to rile their art teacher. The girls are on the cusp of their adult life. Then it’s the late 1960s and London beckons and the paths of the four, but not the friendship, is diverging. Some childhood ambitions are realised: one of the four will become a recognised artist and another will raise a family, but the route to a writing career via pole dancing and to a marriage counsellor lamenting her own divorce are as yet unknown.
There’s comedy here, and it’s well delivered by the female powerhouse of Di Smith, Di Adams, Katrina Foster and Helen O’Connor, but Suzanne Hawley’s play is much more than a sugar-coated romp through the changing mores of the past few decades (from the liberation of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll in the 60s onwards) and the reluctant acceptance that women could have career paths, too. Underneath the adventures and laughter, a tragedy is about to unfold and decisions that no one wants to take will have to be made.
Di Smith’s Jackie seems like the most successful of the four – an acclaimed artist, still feisty and happily partnered with Marco – but when we meet her later in life it is apparent something is very wrong. Jackie’s grip on her memory and reality is slipping away, and she doesn’t want to live her life at half-speed. Her son is at his wits’ end, her friends are horrified and not sure what to do.
No one wants to talk about death and dying, but there it is… coming at us all, sooner or later. Plays like this one make us think about it, and about our lives and what we want. It’s tightly directed by Kim Hardwick. The action flits back and forth across four or five decades and the four women are well drawn, beautifully acted and entirely believable. Lewis Fitz-Gerald plays multiple characters well and newcomer Philip D’Ambrosio steps between the roles of Jackie’s husband and son.
Credits too for Patrick Howard’s sound design, Leo Bosi’s Sea Eagle theme, and Tom Bannerman’s versatile set design, which is brilliant for the small space.
To borrow from the program notes, Di Smith writes: ‘Wild Thing is about friendship, love and daring. Appropriately then, this independent production was born around Lewis’s kitchen table with Katrina, Penny Cook, Andrew James, Margie McRae and me recognising our longstanding friendship and our love for new Australian theatre.’
Marrickville’s Flight Path Theatre is a crucible for new works, a place where classics may be born.
Wild Thing runs until 20 March. Tickets: $35
https://www.flightpaththeatre.org/whats-on/wild-thing-by-suzanne-hawley
