The highly reasonable price of wine at the Bakehouse Theatre proved to be both a blessing and a curse during Adapt Enterprises’ preview performance of ‘This Old Man Comes Rolling Home’. Set in 1950s working class Redfern against a backdrop of communist dissent and socioeconomic despair, the desolation of the Dockerty family could easily encourage one to have a drink or twenty. However this thirst was immediately dispelled when the alcoholic faded beauty of Laurie Dockerty (Cheryl Douglas) appeared on stage lamenting her long-ago lost past as the Belle of Bundaberg.
At its core, Dorothy Hewett’s haunting study of the working class Australia of a bygone era is about disappointment and despair – Laurie’s backwards-glancing regrets for the life she could have had; patriarch Tom Dockerty’s (Ross Vosvotekas, doubling as the incredibly capable director) exhaustion and frustration at having to hold together a family neglected and torn apart by his wife’s unhappiness; the tragedy of the various Dockerty offspring’s attempts to escape their apparently predetermined unhappy futures and, most hauntingly, the agony of trying to live the life that you long for when circumstances and history keep dragging you back down without offering the prospect of escape from the all-encapsulating Redfern.
Superbly cast, the ensemble of Dockerty family members and hangers-on portrays a haunting semblance of a completely dysfunctional family. Although all members of the cast were stellar (even despite a few minor costume-related glitches), the star of the show is undoubtedly Cheryl Douglas, whose portrayal of the selfish, callous and ultimately ruined Laurie Dockerty nonetheless managed to evoke feelings of sympathy and understanding. A special mention also goes to Emily McMahon (playing Edie Dockerty) and Jarrad Parker (as Snowy Baker) who masterfully captured the tragedy of the inescapable quicksand of their lives.
Be prepared to cry. Be prepared to laugh. Be prepared to hear ‘ockerisms’ that could only resound in 1950s working class Australia.
But whatever you do, make sure you get along to ‘This Old Man Comes Rolling Home’.
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