The Bladwell Productions Goulburn production of Things I Know to be True is a powerful piece of Australian theatre that defies even the most stoic attempts to be emotionally unmoved.
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While there is much to unpack from the production, its central focus is family. The affections, the long-held recriminations, the insecurities and jealousies, the allegiances and divisions, the buttons that can be pressed, the forgiving and not forgiving, the assessments and judgements we struggle to let go of, the discoveries we make along the way, and the love.
It's a lot, isn't it? But it's all in there.
It's a difficult thing to write about something in the specific, and for that to resonate in the general sense, but this play by Andrew Bovell manages to do that in such a way that not only the familiar rings true, but even the bits that are alien strike a chord.
Whether you have four kids or no kids, and regardless of whether you have people that match the Price family's traits and characteristics in your own family group, their interactions and dialogue are achingly familiar of laughs you remember and fights you wish you could forget.
Bovell's language will connect you to conversations from your own experience. His words are an automatic pass to moments in your own life that always bring a smile, or that you wish to God you could take back.
This is not the Cunningham family. But it's also not the Duttons of Yellowstone or the Codys of Animal Kingdom. It is a family riddled with flaws and imperfections and inconsistencies but there is love and good intentions and crossed-wires knitted through it, all which makes them so recognisable.
So it's a very good play and a very good Australian story. The words would leap out at you even if you were just reading them from the page, but of course the measure of a great show is not just a good story, but that it is well told and this production is very well told.
The entire ensemble cast are so naturalistic, so embedded into their roles that it becomes easy to suspend disbelief and forget you are simply watching actors, and instead feel you are watching a REAL family work through their issues... and at times, you may even forget the Price family altogether and revisit and relive your own issues.
When Hannah Cotton opens with her soliloquy, I couldn't help but think "wow, this is SO going to be her show." But then Cara Robinson delivered an emotional solo piece, and I thought "wow" again. And then so on. And so on.
Fact is, this ensemble all delivered in droves, and they did so well because all of the parts and the players were so consistently strong and individual. And I can't help thinking that, given this abundance of talent to work with, the director (Zac Bladwell) made a conscious effort to let their talents thrive.
On a very minimalist and sparse stage, his lighting and blocking choices add poignancy at all of the key moments as the show moved with ease from comic exchanges you'll feel you remember from your own life, to emotional gut punches and tear-inducing moments.
The gut punches and tears may differ from audience member to audience member and I want to steer clear of spoiling any moments, but I don't think it spoils anything to say for me personally, the ringing phone took me to a memory that undid me.
And, again on a personal note, I was so proud of the performance of my friend Anthony Lewis, whose acting chops have long deserved this sort of recognition.
In producing this show, Bladwell Productions has succeeded in its goal of bringing great Australian stories to the people of Goulburn at an unbelievably accessible price. I find it really moving to see such true believers do something for the common good without a thought to their own financial bottom line.
And you can see this show just to support such enterprise and generosity of spirit and that's perfectly fine if you do.
But another fairly commanding reason to see this is that it is so bloody good.
This play not only invites to you examine the short list of things in your own life that you know to be true, but also to confront the things that you wish weren't.
Here's what I know to be true about this production.
It's emotional, confronting, a bit 'sweary' and beautiful.
It features a cast of sublime performers at the peak of their talents, eliciting the best from each other and bouncing off each other like... well...family.
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It is framed inside the exquisite Goulburn Performing Arts Centre with staging and direction that, despite the size of the venue, draws you into the intimacy as if you were in the room alongside the Prices.
And it's a story that's packed with all of the enriching, soul-destroying, supportive, oppositional, uplifting and maddening chaos that is family.
Family is messy, but it abides.
This production confronts, but it soars.
- Things I Know to be True continues at GPAC on Saturday, August 27 at 7pm and Sunday, August 28 at 2.30pm.
My Rating: Five stars.
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