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 Darlinghurst Theatre
Until June 21
Bookings: (02) 8356 9987
Well, actually, Miss Reardon drinks more than a little. Let’s just say that Catherine Reardon, assisted blonde and advanced alcoholic, is ripe for an intervention. She is not the only Miss Reardon in the play.
There are in fact three of them – three ‘wacky’ sisters at odds with one another and themselves, and while set in New York the piece has the tone of a dysfunctional Mississippi family melodrama.
Paul Zindel, who won a Pulitzer Prize for an earlier play with the unusual title The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, is too gifted a writer to simply want to entertain us with the antics of oddballs.
Zindel probes into the lives of his characters, never ignoring the insecurities that prevent them from moving on from the ugly predicaments in which they find themselves. The play ignites because of its comic dialogue but it’s almost a fluke that it’s funny because the banter never loses its plaintive, desperate element.
Nicholas Papademetriou directorial instincts sustain him well here – the production moves quickly with its heart open and he seems to get that what makes the play work is keeping the combined lunacy of the sisters feel very real. While his actors may have been directed, at times, to signal reactions that are better left understated, Papademetriou has resisted over-exploiting the many eccentric moments.
In interviews, Zindel, who wrote And Miss Reardon in the late 1960s and died in 2003, talked about the strong influence Edward Albee had on his work.
Strangely, sitting in the audience I was thinking that if Tennessee Williams and Beth Henley met in a bar this is a play they might have written together. There are definitely tormented women on stage and the three leads do a fine job illuminating the sisters’ struggles, their rivalries and ultimately the tenuous nature of the bonds between them.
Helen O’Connor shines in the role of Catherine. As Anna Reardon, the sister accused of molesting a student, Lucinda Armour has some wonderfully droll moments. Ceil has escaped spinsterhood by stealing one sister’s boyfriend and now seeks to have the other committed. As played by Monique Spanbrook, she is a fine example of stoicism in meltdown.
There are good performances in the supporting roles too and the set design by John Pryce Jones with its bubble wrap walls aptly suggests the insulated lives led in the Reardon apartment.
The play won’t suit everyone’s taste but I was glad to be introduced to the work of this writer.
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