By Bronwyn Cook
“This wall of disparity between us, Frankie, we gotta break it down. So the only space left between us is just us.”
Wrapped up in a complex, circular-collison, complicated post-coital conversation between Frankie and Johnny this is the crux of their ‘relationship’.
Let me introduce you to Frankie and Johnny.
Johnny is an over-talkative ex-con fry cook, who reads Shakespeare. Frankie is a world-weary waitress, who once dreamed of becoming an actress. They work at the same diner in New York. She lives in Hell’s Kitchen; he lives in Brooklyn Heights. We met them on a Saturday night after their first date. They are both middle-aged, alone and living ordinary lives.
Despite discovering how much they have in common – from where they grew up, to when their mothers left them – Frankie and Johnny spend most of this late night / early morning in a push-pull scenario.
Frankie wants Johnny to leave so she can enjoy a meatloaf sandwich and watch TV, Johnny is making declarations of love and marriage propositions. You couldn’t find two people at different ends of the relationship desire spectrum. The more Johnny pulls Frankie towards him, the more she pushes him away.
Johnny, accompanied by ‘the most beautiful music ever written’ from Bach and the title tune from Debussy, gradually breaks down Frankie’s multiple rebukes to discover the trauma that is fighting his let’s-take-a-chance-on-love advances.
It takes two very talented actors to bring Frankie and Johnny to the stage, as it is just them on a simple set. There is nowhere to hide. Previous Frankie’s have included Kathy Bates (originated the role off-Broadway in 1987), Carol Kane, Edie Falco, Rosie Perez and most recently Audra McDonald. F. Murray Abraham was Bates Johnny, who has also been portrayed by Stanley Tucci, Joe Pantoliano and Michael Shannon.
Nathaniel Currie as Johnny and Candice Hill as Frankie bring the right mix of character, playfulness, gravitas, and most importantly relatability to the stage. You can tell they’ve spent weeks building up the trust to be as vulnerable as these roles require, as they seem very at ease with each other – even in the most confrontational moments.
Currie’s stand out moment is his vulnerable monologue near the end of act 1, as he makes a phone call to a radio station DJ to request a song, re-telling the Frankie and Johnny story to date. “…all they knew was they were perfect together and it was perfect and they were perfect and that’s all there was to know about it and as they lay there, they both began the million reasons not to love one another like a familiar rosary.” All whilst Frankie reaches complete desperation point and lashes out by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him. He wears Johnny’s heart on his sleeve with loveable panache.
Hill’s Frankie is both heartbreaking and heart-warming. She spends most of the play on the edge, which must take tremendous energy, slipping either way as Frankie spins between wanting to relent to Johnny’s love and keeping up her tough defences.
Both Currie and Hill successfully navigate Terrence McNally’s mid-80s text, which let’s face it, is not easy going at times. It touches on domestic abuse, alcoholism, broken-families, suicide and even Johnny’s persistence and resistance to leave borders on stalking.
But when a show is as well acted as this Ad Astra production is, those potentially troublesome points are forgotten as you get swept away in the heart and hopefulness of the story. It’s also helped by the intimacy of the staging – as this is the first production in their latest space to open in their Petrie Terrace home, the black-box Pluto stage. Seating only 44, you cannot help but be instantly connected to the storyline and the actors. No matter where you sat, you felt like you were in Frankie’s NY studio apartment on this emotionally wild ride.
It’s wonderful to see that Brisbane is creating the spaces needed for renowned works like this to be brought to the stage.
As Sunday pushes its way in on our lovers, the sun lighting up Frankie’s apartment, we are left with the closing notes of Clair de Lune and a hopeful, but unknown future.
And isn’t that all we can ask for? Hope, with a little bit of love, in an unknown world.
