Helen Garner’s harrowing but loving story, The Spare Room, is set to open at Belvoir Theatre tomorrow. Adapted for the stage by its director Eamon Flack, The Spare Room is set over the course of three weeks while the narrator, Helen, cares for a friend dying of bowel cancer.
For actor Alan Dukes, the production sees him busily inhabiting eight different characters, most of which are medical professionals that cross paths with Nicola and Helen on their journey over this three week period, and provide different approaches to treating Nicola’s condition. “I also play a magician just to mix it up which has probably been the most challenging, says Dukes. “I’ve been tutored in performing a show by a professional Magician and on a good day I can make a few things disappear.”
The call to become involved in the show could not have come soon enough for Dukes who had just gone through a period of being out of work. “The call from Eamon came out of the blue, so on a survival level I would have been enticed by any project! Luckily for me it was a great read matched with a great creative team.”
For Dukes, Garner’s simple and powerful prose explores the lives of women of a certain age and what society expects of their behaviour, the different approaches to treatment and a person’s choice to navigate end of life.
Themes include truth, mortality, the bonds and boundaries of friendship. “Any journey with cancer is a complex and unpredictable ride that tests you and the people around you in ways most of us don’t have to consider,” says Dukes.
Garner received much praise for her treatment of illness, mortality and the unattractive emotions it involves. Says director Flack, “The Spare Room looks like a story about dying but it’s really about what we live for: each other“
The play stars the legendary Judy Davis as Helen and, says Duke, Davis is a powerful energy to have in the rehearsal room. “With a new piece like this she has a great insight and instinct as to storytelling. I’ve loved our character’s interactions, I feel with acting you never stop learning about portraying the human condition so I’m savouring watching her work…and she has a wicked sense of humour.”
Dukes has worked in feature film, TV and on the stage , As a creative he enjoys the fragility of the human condition, saying: “As a flawed human, I enjoy trying to explore and inhabit those characters that struggle or don’t fit in. There’s ample avenues for drama and comedy.”
When Helen’s old friend, Nicola, comes to town for treatment, it only makes sense she should stay in the spare room. Nicola has put her faith in a shady alternative cancer clinic, and Helen is determined to be her brilliant friend and carer no matter what. But as the sleepless nights rack up, a short stay in the spare room becomes a loving, maddening battle for life.
Says Dukes, “If you like watching messy human interactions with no easy answers, The Spare Room’s for you.”
June 7 – July 13
https://belvoir.com.au/productions/the-spare-room/
