By Jennifer Beasley.
This fiercely intelligent play portrays the late, great artist Joy Hester as the true Icon she was, blazing in rebellious glory, and stunningly acted by Emma Louise Pursey.
When life mimics art, mimics life, and the circle returns.
Emma Louise Pursey, an absolute Goddess on stage, has become the late, great artist, Joy Hester. With a life burdened by the pain of cancer diagnosis’ (both suffered Hodgkin’s Lymphoma), by all accounts Pursey becomes the erratic, driven, fast-talking, no-holds-bar Hester in this 70-minute one-woman show at the always fabulous FortyFiveDownstairs.
If you have no knowledge of who Joy Hester was, then this play will do the deep dive. But it is so much more than that. It is a retelling of a life where Hester’s drunk father dies when she is 12; the effects of an abusive mother, her rebellious spirit and gifted with a massive talent that was overshadowed by her male colleagues, even though she was part of the seminal Angry Penguins in the Modernist Era of Melbourne Art in the 1940’s.
This is a deeply personal play for Pursey. Originally written by Amy Hyslop in 2004, Pursey has taken this love project, reworked it, and brought the fiery spirit of Joy Hester back to life.
Pursey’s own writing talents are considerable. Infusing the One Act play with poetic language, and some of Hester’s own poetry, she criss-crosses timeline to revisit the childhood of Hester. The first twenty minutes of the play is bogged down exploring her early years, which unfortunately slows down the play. However, with brilliant direction from renown director Susie Dee (a true Master if ever there was one), the production lifts itself into the stratosphere as Pursey’s Hester really hits her stride.
Covering Hester’s multiple abortions, the onset of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, remission and then reoccurrence, Hester’s marriage to Albert Tucker, the decision to give away her child Sweeny, her multiple affairs and then her final love match with Gray Smith, this play leaves no stone unturned as it examines the thematic rebelliousness and lust for life of a woman who career was overshadowed and overlooked.
A creative use of the whitewashed wall at the basement of FortyFiveDownstairs, walled with heavy black curtains, allows the audiovisuals to be projected as larger-than-life bushes painting in Hester’s trademark black ink. Sarah-Mary Chadwick as AV and sound designer has really outdone herself here. Beautifully framed (literally), she uses the black painting frame, a prop by Lindy Macauley, to showcase the brushworks of Hester, yet the strokes bleed through the frame, as, like the woman herself, the concept of a frame is not enough to contain the passionate energy spilling from the page. The final dramatic ending is the best one I’ve seen this year, a culmination of sound, excellent lightening by Amelia Lever-Davidson, visuals and Pursey’s own triumphant talent.
When life mimics art, mimics life, and the circle returns.
Joy Hester left an indelible mark on my own life. As a young art student, I studied her ferociously. Her inked paintings, drawn on the floor, were studies of pain and passion and love. Many of her works showed faces with big eyes and no noses. She had won a prestigious award at the National Gallery School in Melbourne in 1938 and died too young when she was 40 in 1960. She was funny and smart and so talented, and Pursey has captured her spirit beautifully. She was my Goddess, and she gave me hope.
The question asks – Where is Joy? The answer is she is in everyone; she is the spirit that lives life.
Where is Joy? plays at FortyFiveDownstairs at 7:30pm until the 9th November, 2025.
Image: Amber Schmidt
