Eugenia Fragos as Fran – image by Shane Reid

By Peter Maddern

Geordie Brookman’s approach in 2014 to Andrew Bovell for a new play has proven to be inspired. Coming off The Secret River and previously When The Rain Stops Falling (along with his screen play A Man Most Wanted), Bovell is quite Australia’s leading play write and this, Things I Know To Be True, will only sustain his star in the ascendancy.

Notwithstanding, its composition for the audience is somewhat curious. As for its plot the program speaks only of it being ‘a warm, funny and ultimately tragic family drama about growing up, moving on and what’s left behind’ and that is buried at the base of Bovell’s own notes.

Yet, by its conclusion that suffices as Bob (Paul Blackwell) and Fran (Eugenia Fragos), working class parents, deal with the issues of their four children and of themselves. Poignantly set at Halletts Cove south of Adelaide it reflects as much the unique and somewhat grim circumstances of this town as it does on how much their children are of another era they can barely define let alone comprehend – upwardly mobile and unbounded by the mores of their parents as to relationships and, well, most things.

Its own moral is as hard to decipher as the forewarning of its narrative was to find but ‘even within families fate, like time and tide wait for no man’ is one place to start.

Eugenia Fragos is absorbing and compelling as the know all, calculating mother – our care for her diminishing as the play develops in proportion to how our respect and empathy grows for husband Bob with Blackwell in his usual fine form. Of the ‘children’, Georgia Adamson’s Pip and Tilda Cobham-Hervey’s Rosie delight as siblings of both purpose and devotion yet flawed by those strengths.

Things I Know to be True also at times has the feel of a movie, incorporating Nils Frahm’s music and co-director Scott Graham’s passion for dance and movement. His presence also acts as a welcome restraint on Geordie Brookman’s panache for the absurd ensuring the players develop their characters and relationships with the audience without the noise of cheap laughs.

Geoff Cobham’s lighting, notably an array of hanging filament globes, sets off  Thom Buchanan’s inspired backdrop making all in attendance feel very at home.

This is fine new theatre and the best of that kind that the Brookmans have brought to the State Theatre since their arrival three years back.

Kryztoff Rating  4K

By Peter Maddern

After a month of, at times, mindless shows at the Fringe, taking on three hours of Shakespeare more than sweeps out of one any lingering post Madness malaise. Last winter Rob Croser’s Independent Theatre ambitiously took on The Great Gatsby at The Space; emboldened by its success, but now in its more familiar surroundings of the Goodwood Institute, the testing Hamlet is their focus.

The proportion of the modern audience who find Shakespeare a delight can often be matched or even exceeded by those for whom the language is an uncompromising challenge but if the widely held enjoyment of many of the Bard’s jokes in last night’s show is any measure, IT’s Hamlet has succeeded in making a four hundred year old text accessible to even the most inexperienced patron of the theatre.

Of course, none of that would be possible without a compelling player as Hamlet and in that Will Cox, as he did in Gatsby, triumphs. From schitzo to schemer, friend or foe, Cox convincingly swings his character’s mood and manipulations (or is it just his madness) to suit whoever he must. In fact Cox so dominates proceedings – not just within the script but with his presence on the stage – that his fellow players were spot on acknowledging his achievement during the curtain calls.

Indeed, in his wake, it was hard to identify others who shone; yet that in no way should be read as criticism. The nearest one got as an adequate foil, both metaphorically and physically was Jett Zitkovic, confident and compelling as Guildenstern but more particularly as Laertes. Both Madeleine Herd (as Ophelia) and Bronwyn Ruciak (as Gertrude) had their moments (to the extent women get a say in Shakespeare’s world) and David Roach also hit heights as Polonius and the Gravedigger, where his leadership made the whole cemetery scene a delight.

No review would be complete without mention of the staging. Rob Croser and Roach’s stage design triumph where less is more. With a Danny Boyle flourish, the stage is one large circular disc sloping down towards the audience, making the aforementioned grave digging stanza particularly captivating. More than effective use of side lighting by Susan Grey-Gardner kept the tempestuous themes of the play to the fore with much of it appropriately played out seemingly in the dark of night.

All in all, Hamlet is another triumph by Rob Croser and his team with Will Cox more than worth the price of admission.