J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls (1945) still has plenty of power and surprises in its dramatic uncovering of how a young woman died – and how a well-off stratum of society contributed to her suicide.
The Blackheath Theatre Company is a community theatre group who tackle both well-known plays and commission short new plays.
An Inspector Calls requires a strong ensemble to deliver its striking denouements. That is hard for a community theatre to manage. It occurs in fits and starts in this production. Set in a timeframe that flags the imminent sinking of the Titanic – Edwardian before the conflagration of the War to end all Wars – it requires actors who can instantiate the period and its power relationships.
Mrs Burling – the cold hearted and socially superior wife of the self-made man – was played by Liz De Koster like a hard boiled 1930s vamp, slinking excessively around the stage, as though pacing out her lines and ever ready to take a glass of alcohol for courage. The note of controlling anger and natural authority was sometimes usefully achieved in her voice, but it was hard to imagine this woman commanding the authority of a large Edwardian household or stiffly running a benevolent society. There was no aristocratic command in body and words.
Eddie McKenzie as the dissolute son, Eric Burling, was unable to give us a true drunk or a truly dishevelled young man of this period. The slicked back longhair was a jarring malaprop. He simpered across his role. Much of the text disappeared on the cusp of bad diction. The petulance was there but not the withering debasement that had followed the loss of his coddled sense of entitlement. Nor could he clearly articulate the evasion of responsibility that, like his mother, he attempts to action. The fact that he raped Eva Smith was difficult to reconcile with this portrayal.
Dominique Zanolla created a believable daughter, Sheila Burling, shocked by the discovery of her contribution to the young woman’s suicide – and outraged at the fate of the poor woman now lying dead in the General Infirmary. But her sing song voice and simpering demeanour could not plumb the depths of her awakening to the vivid imposts of poverty, though she did know how to hold her body to replicate the gendered and powerless role of an Edwardian betrothed.
As Gerald Croft, Tim Bond was just too young for his affianced Sheila, but managed his confession scene with some sensitivity, yet the drawn-out nature of each sentence meant the lugubrious tone of the production predominated and diction fluctuated on large pauses. As an Edwardian man about town, his description of the prostitutes he visits lacked the sharp class bite and misogyny that Priestly gives him: “I hate those hard eyes dough faced women”. He could neither savour the language nor vary its tread.
Pacing was an endemic problem. Ralph Andrews – as Inspector Goole - was so low key as almost to disappear in parts of Act 1. Maybe this was supposed to suggest a wraith like presence. His endless pacing on squeaky stage floorboards - in search of his lines and thoughts - was not conducive to establishing his authority. His soft voice undermined his generally good diction. He did create some energy in Act 2 – when anger at the final unfolding of the household’s complicity in the suicide was unveiled, but this was too late to rescue an unsatisfactory performance.
Marty O’Neill as the self-satisfied father, Mr Birling - let his strong voice and Yorkshire accent articulate the normative thinking of the successful capitalist, shockingly simple in his prejudice and beliefs. He also discovered some of the fear that underpins all such self-made men. He delivered a subtly nuanced trajectory, as the tale of the dead Eva Smith unravels across his carefully planned evening of celebration, confounding him with an upended engagement, the discovery of theft within the family and a dead illegitimate grandchild, and further confirmation of the absolute hardness of his trophy wife. He varied the pace of his delivery in line with the text and situation, ensuring in Act 1 that the world of hard work and money was in place for its imminent downfall. In Act 2 the relief in his voice was powerful when the chance that every debilitating truth he has witnessed across this evening might be a mirage, a hoax: the world would soon return to its natural order. All this was well observed and clearly communicated.
Bella Lawrence ensured the maid - Edna – entered and exited with demure charm.
The Director and Assistant Director – Sabine Erike and Peta Toppano – managed to keep the venture afloat – and ensure that the power of this work still had a discernible pulse – with flashes of excellence and deft narrative, though it was impossible to remove the element of play acting that sometimes bedevils community theatre. The production required much more consistent theatrical dash.
This play about community, about rights and responsibilities, has a strong dialectic about how individual actions can upend a life and destroy its creativity, particularly when poverty and homelessness are viewed as an individual responsibility and individual fault. It explores the idea that many societies seem to require deep imbalance between the haves and have nots. This play unpicks how a deeply conservative and capitalist society operates, how it excessively rewards those who network the sharp crevices of exploitation and how they hold on to their spectacular rewards. It is an apposite play for our times.
Indeed, more than ever, the communal requires our support and critical response.
Blackheath Theatre Company, Phillips Halls, Blackheath NSW, April 27, 2024
Gar Jones
Declaration: the reviewer has personal connections with some of the cast.
The Blackheath Theatre Company is a community theatre group who tackle both well-known plays and commission short new plays.
An Inspector Calls requires a strong ensemble to deliver its striking denouements. That is hard for a community theatre to manage. It occurs in fits and starts in this production. Set in a timeframe that flags the imminent sinking of the Titanic – Edwardian before the conflagration of the War to end all Wars – it requires actors who can instantiate the period and its power relationships.
Mrs Burling – the cold hearted and socially superior wife of the self-made man – was played by Liz De Koster like a hard boiled 1930s vamp, slinking excessively around the stage, as though pacing out her lines and ever ready to take a glass of alcohol for courage. The note of controlling anger and natural authority was sometimes usefully achieved in her voice, but it was hard to imagine this woman commanding the authority of a large Edwardian household or stiffly running a benevolent society. There was no aristocratic command in body and words.
Eddie McKenzie as the dissolute son, Eric Burling, was unable to give us a true drunk or a truly dishevelled young man of this period. The slicked back longhair was a jarring malaprop. He simpered across his role. Much of the text disappeared on the cusp of bad diction. The petulance was there but not the withering debasement that had followed the loss of his coddled sense of entitlement. Nor could he clearly articulate the evasion of responsibility that, like his mother, he attempts to action. The fact that he raped Eva Smith was difficult to reconcile with this portrayal.
Dominique Zanolla created a believable daughter, Sheila Burling, shocked by the discovery of her contribution to the young woman’s suicide – and outraged at the fate of the poor woman now lying dead in the General Infirmary. But her sing song voice and simpering demeanour could not plumb the depths of her awakening to the vivid imposts of poverty, though she did know how to hold her body to replicate the gendered and powerless role of an Edwardian betrothed.
As Gerald Croft, Tim Bond was just too young for his affianced Sheila, but managed his confession scene with some sensitivity, yet the drawn-out nature of each sentence meant the lugubrious tone of the production predominated and diction fluctuated on large pauses. As an Edwardian man about town, his description of the prostitutes he visits lacked the sharp class bite and misogyny that Priestly gives him: “I hate those hard eyes dough faced women”. He could neither savour the language nor vary its tread.
Pacing was an endemic problem. Ralph Andrews – as Inspector Goole - was so low key as almost to disappear in parts of Act 1. Maybe this was supposed to suggest a wraith like presence. His endless pacing on squeaky stage floorboards - in search of his lines and thoughts - was not conducive to establishing his authority. His soft voice undermined his generally good diction. He did create some energy in Act 2 – when anger at the final unfolding of the household’s complicity in the suicide was unveiled, but this was too late to rescue an unsatisfactory performance.
Marty O’Neill as the self-satisfied father, Mr Birling - let his strong voice and Yorkshire accent articulate the normative thinking of the successful capitalist, shockingly simple in his prejudice and beliefs. He also discovered some of the fear that underpins all such self-made men. He delivered a subtly nuanced trajectory, as the tale of the dead Eva Smith unravels across his carefully planned evening of celebration, confounding him with an upended engagement, the discovery of theft within the family and a dead illegitimate grandchild, and further confirmation of the absolute hardness of his trophy wife. He varied the pace of his delivery in line with the text and situation, ensuring in Act 1 that the world of hard work and money was in place for its imminent downfall. In Act 2 the relief in his voice was powerful when the chance that every debilitating truth he has witnessed across this evening might be a mirage, a hoax: the world would soon return to its natural order. All this was well observed and clearly communicated.
Bella Lawrence ensured the maid - Edna – entered and exited with demure charm.
The Director and Assistant Director – Sabine Erike and Peta Toppano – managed to keep the venture afloat – and ensure that the power of this work still had a discernible pulse – with flashes of excellence and deft narrative, though it was impossible to remove the element of play acting that sometimes bedevils community theatre. The production required much more consistent theatrical dash.
This play about community, about rights and responsibilities, has a strong dialectic about how individual actions can upend a life and destroy its creativity, particularly when poverty and homelessness are viewed as an individual responsibility and individual fault. It explores the idea that many societies seem to require deep imbalance between the haves and have nots. This play unpicks how a deeply conservative and capitalist society operates, how it excessively rewards those who network the sharp crevices of exploitation and how they hold on to their spectacular rewards. It is an apposite play for our times.
Indeed, more than ever, the communal requires our support and critical response.
Blackheath Theatre Company, Phillips Halls, Blackheath NSW, April 27, 2024
Gar Jones
Declaration: the reviewer has personal connections with some of the cast.