Accomplished director Geoff Brittain has elicited the maximum possible from this Peter Quilter script. Aided in particular by the splendid performance of Julia Quick in the title role, Brittain illustrated the deep impact of the closing of the actress’s long and distinguished stage career.
Framed in Leah Klemm’s striking box set of the star’s dressing room, the action takes place on the evening of Lydia Martin’s last ever stage performance. In the course of the evening Lydia interacts with a number of folk including her dresser, her daughter, her current elderly beau, her former husband, her agent and the theatre manager. Each of these encounters adds a layer of information, humour or complexity to our understanding of Lydia’s character. Further, we also see a couple of scenes, from a backstage view, of Lydia’s final play, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. This, it should be noted, was staged on a platform high above the Arts Theatre stage, and adjacent to a cut-away section of the main set. That efficiency of time and space was an asset, although at times the focus of that play-within-the-play was a little unclear.
Julie Quick’s performance was remarkable. She showed multiple facets of Lydia’s character, above all the doubts she felt at her career’s end. Her performance also ranged from surety to anger to a softness in dealing with those who either worked in the theatre – Katherine the dresser and Margaret the manager – and those who paid her visits. She managed all those encounters and the serious questions they often raised, yet she retained her essential credible character. It was easy to believe the deep ambivalence Lydia increasingly felt. It was a skilful and convincing central performance.
There was a strength, too, across the cast. Jean Walker was the consummate, humble dresser who suffered the extremes of the star’s behaviour with calm acceptance, and even love. Yet she had a ready wit and spark about her. Leah Lowe, as Lydia’s daughter Nicole, gave us a study of the uncertainty of life as the offspring of a famous public figure. Hers was a steady, measured characterisation, at its liveliest when Nicole was being off-hand with her mother.
Olivia Jane Parker was effective as Lydia’s theatrical agent, Harriet. She clearly demonstrated the character’s complete dependence on Lydia’s career for her own success. That came to a head in her drunken, self-pitying outburst about feeling betrayed by the actress’s retirement.
Michelle Hrvatin was firm, if occasionally spiteful, as the company manager, Margaret, often bringing pointless director’s notes to Lydia. Norm Caddick made a welcome return to the stage as Lydia’s elderly fiance, a banker with whom she shortly intended to travel to a sterile retirement in Switzerland. Caddick had some of the funniest lines and provided light, if bemused, humour as the butt of others’ jibes.
Malcolm Walton was credible and often funny in the critical role of Lydia’s former husband, Paul, who made his return after several years. He succeeded in bringing a ‘normal’, non-theatrical perspective to the dressing room. His amorous advances, at first resisted by Lydia, highlighted the ambivalence that she felt developing about a number of aspects of her career, and indeed, her life.
This was a play centred very much on the feelings, words and actions of the main character. It contained both humour and pathos. The principal focus was Lydia at the close of her career. Considering the premise, and at times hints in the script itself, it could have been an opportunity for self-indulgent wallowing by a fading star. Geoff Brittain and the cast, especially the deft and subtle Julie Quick, did very well to make sure that didn’t happen.
