Heir Raising

REVIEWS Brad Sykes's review on Australian Stage In honour of the 'new' Mardi Gras, prolific playwright (and now, author, with the publication of his first book, on the films of Mamie Van Doren) Barry Lowe's cunningly punny, funny, new four-hander, Heir Raising (based on the screenplay for Violet's Visit, by Lowe and Anthony Creagh, from an original idea by Richard Turner), directed by the accomplished Elaine Hudson, is enjoying a month-long run at Marrickville's most excellent Factory Theatre which, having established itself as one of this sparkling city's most congenial music venues, has ventured to open a smaller theatre, under its copious roof. It's a good space. You don't have to be gay to enjoy the story of 30-somethings, Taylor and Eden, about to celebrate their twelfth anniversary & a well-worn relationship with a commitment ceremony ('though the play pertinently, if more eloquently asks, why would any gay person want a ceremony devised by the very people who deny them the right to one). They're hit for six by the arrival of skateboarding Scooter, Taylor's unwanted 15-year-old upstart daughter, who's desperately seeking daddy.  Unhappily, she falls for Duane, a gay gymbo rent-boy, who has a hard-on, unhappily, for her father. This tangled web is more for comic effect than anything else, but serves as an entertaining conceit, skimming over the surface of the play's deeper concerns. It mightn't be woven around a trad, garden-variety (unless we're talking fruit) family, but it's all about family ties nonetheless. As per, the endline and slogan, it's not your usual family portrait. But it portrays all the things a family is and ought to be: warm, affectionate, tender, humane, flawed, forgiving; a crucible of respect, understanding, empathy, equality and, oh yeah, love. While not played at all times with complete self-assurance, Pete Walters & Darrin Redgate make a believable, mature gay couple. Recent ACTT grad, Helen Vienne, shines as the headstrong pubescent; Adam George plays the buff, self-adoring Duane with, well, gay abandon and Mary-Anne Halpin is a delight in her various roles, as an self-centred, serially (as against seriously) monogamous mum, old tart, Bella La Ball, predatory school mistress and incorrigibly pessimistic marriage celebrant, ironically named Joy. It's a play with heart and only one or two dud lines. There was the odd, pregnant pause when the comic trajectory falls a little flaccid, the odd, awkward technical glitch and, perhaps, a little too much reliance on musical segue but, all-in-all, it shapes-up, as a satisfying slice-of-life, with tragic elements mercifully understated. It's all-lived-happily-ever-after ending might taste a little too sweet for some, but it's solid, with a noteworthy set, by a talented NIDA grad. The parallels drawn, between the rollercoasting vagaries of hetero and homosexual relationships, help demonstrate and gently persuade that Eden & Taylor, to paraphrase Scooter, albeit slightly, are just like normal people, except they take turns putting their legs behind their ears. (Don't worry, there are as many crudités onstage as crudities and, where they do arise, they're very funny.) Despite being supportive of Scooter's entry into their lives and home, Eden feels neglected because Taylor, when not spending time tending the gym he owns is, more-and-more, tending his paternal garden. There are other threats and opportunities, such as the hovering Duane, but it all comes out in the wash. I'm not sure it would, in current guise, this production would cut the mustard as a mainstage production, but as fringe, in an intimate setting, with a small, but supportive crowd, it suffices as thoroughly charming and well worth the ask. The play itself, while not outwardly, noisily 'groundbreaking', will prove, I'll wager, to be a slow-cooking, quietly achieving stayer, thanks to its patient, unequivocal exposition: its cool, calm, compassionate, rational presentation of the normality and acceptability of gay families. To that extent its an important, positive, productive example of social venture capital. All involved are to be congratulated on their recognition of such, in quite courageously agreeing to play their part. A number of Lowe's plays have been produced across the US and this would seem to have prime export material written all over it, especially with its catchy branding.