By Darby Turnbull
During his opening night address, playwright Ben MacEllen described The Placeholder as ‘Steel Magnolias through a tran lens’. With the cult classic due to make a touring revival later this year I think it’s only appropriate the Naarm is lucky enough to see the debut of a play that, from my end, deserves at least as long a life and adulation.
Barb’s Bosom Buddies are a collective of schoolteachers who meet once a month in their Regional Victorian town to fundraise for Breast Cancer Awareness, an illness that has claimed the life of their friend and anchor, Barb. This being 2017, they have branched out into other social causes, namely the plebiscite into Marriage Equality. This is a touching tribute to the bonds that hold women together in small communities; even if they don’t always get along, they rely on each other for companionship and comradery where they can let loose and be themselves. Into this matriarchal haven steps, a man.
A person they have known, since he was a child, as Nicole; a local footy player, PE teacher and ‘baby dyke’ confides in his old friends that he’s a trans man and is about to commence physically transitioning.
As is often the case in drama (occasionally in life) a person’s gender transition becomes a catalyst for others to project their own anxieties about their bodies, souls and place in the social sphere. Ollie Ayres as Nathan, is a simmering presence; the onus of ‘educating’ his friends is taken for granted and he exactingly shows the pain and embarrassment of having his identity become a battleground for his friends. Each character is experiencing their own fraught, changing relationship with their own body and as many people who have been socialised female, have experienced, the fight for recognition is often misdirected at their closest allies.
Directed by Kitan Petvoksi and designed by Bethany J Fellows; MacEllen’s keenly observed, conversational dialogue drops the audience straight into a homely, integrated ‘lived in’ world. Ian Moorhead’s Soundscape also (disconcertingly) takes us through two years of political discourse, to remind us just how many moral injuries we’ve lived through in recent memory. The play ends in early 2020, god help us.
Fellows’ working Kitchen is a realistic recreation of a kitchen in a comfortable, country home. The soft, wooden cupboards and benches, kid’s paintings on the fridge and cabinets full of brick’ brack invoke uncanny sense memories.
My previous experiences with Petkovski’s work have been his leadership on more stylised pieces (I missed Things I know to be true) and he evokes profound sense of somatic symbolism to more naturalistic melodrama beautifully. Our familiarity with the characters and their individual perspectives are seamlessly conveyed and the tension, especially, towards the end of Act 1 is tight as a vice.
It shouldn’t be too presumptuous to say that he must be becoming a major draw for some of our most respected stage actors. Ben MaEllen’s perspective and reverence for his characters and the multitudes they contain, holds space for so much grace and tenderness as revelations and developments continue to emerge.
Stepping in for an indisposed Maude Davey, Meredith Rogers is breathtakingly poignant as the retired Pat, whose house the Bosom Buddies meet in. As a pillar of the community, she’s beginning to feel her age, with incremental and then rapid lapses in short term memory. Her terror and rage are palpable especially given how much the others rely on her kindness. The unravelling of Pat’s inner life (and there are multiple revelations) are conveyed so believably due to how sensitively Rogers underplays and lets the core of this woman shine.
Brigid Gallagher is inspired casting as the tightly wound Joanna is tasked with being the most overtly hostile and dismissive; she is responsible for the most well-worn of bigoted perspectives, especially towards Nathan. Gallagher has a genius for infusing certain cadences with levity in even the most benign of phrases; her smug amusement whenever she finds herself saying something ‘woke’ and real viciousness whenever she feels provoked into wounding.
Michelle Perera as staunch ally Helen is a beacon of warmth and wit. MacEllen very astutely understands the need for the Helens of the world to passionately (sometimes imperfectly) go to bat for what’s right, whilst they learn in real time. Perera has superb timing and is indispensable in punctuating tense scenes with a well observed quip or eye roll. When we reach the climax of Helen’s story (another huge narrative swerve) we’re encouraged to reflect back on her performance over the previous two hours and relish just how carefully she’s provided context for the inevitable.
One of the more refreshing (and underrepresented) aspects of the text is MacEllen’s very sensitive exploration of the 21st century conflicts between intergenerational queerness. Rebecca Bower as Keira, a middle aged Masc of Centre lesbian gives a raw example of the huge emotional toll it takes to be visibly queer and the effects it has on both your personality and the wellbeing of others. Keira is brash and caustic, with a sharp take down always at the ready but also possesses immense swagger. Fellows dresses her in the height of Butch fashion, which caused many a sapphic swoon in the audience. Keira, despite her own progressive queer values, does openly struggle to hold space for trans people and her dismissiveness is multi-dimensional; from clueless to occasionally hostile. I know many such women, especially in arts and academia, trying to reconcile their own bias with their morality, some more successfully than others and it’s for them that this play might be the most essential.
Alessandra Merlo as Nathan’s partner, Jess makes the most of her more minor role but makes a strong impact in her brief appearances as a young woman whose own needs override the struggles of her partner.
Jess and Nathan are frequently discussed but it’s one aspect of the text I would have liked to have seen explored with more substance. The complexity and occasional toxicity of their relationship is tantalising, especially with how threatened Jess is not just by Nathan’s transition but by his friendship with the women, who (for the most part) are supportive.
Given my own dissatisfaction with the Australian melodrama in recent years, it’s a welcome relief to see such a moving, robust and rich evocation of women and queer lives that vividly captures our recent past. It has all the makings of a modern classic.
Image: Darren Gill
