Apologia. By Alexi Kaye Campbell. Directed by Jennifer Flowers. Melbourne Theatre Company, The Arts Centre. Until April 9
Alexi Kaye Campbell’s Apologia takes its title from the memoir of Kristin Miller, a spiky and ferociously intelligent art critic. No one could question her brilliant career, but when her two sons – Peter, a merchant banker, and Simon, a depressive writer – arrive for her birthday, buried resentments surface. Their mother’s memoir doesn’t mention her children at all.
Laura Gordon and Robyn Nevin. Photo: Jeff Busby
A comedy drama, the play is on its face a swift and amusing dinner table farce, with a strong undertow of domestic strife. As its name suggests, it’s also a defence – of idealism, political and religious; of art’s capacity to foster empathy; and of the first generation of women to carve out a career and raise a family in a society that actively discriminated against them doing so.
No one wants a critic as a mother. Critics aren’t known for diplomacy, and strained etiquette provides a train of amusingly awkward moments. It’s inevitable that Kristin, a veteran of the 1968 protests and fervent Marxist, would have a rapaciously capitalist son. But gentle barbs turn to dismay when Peter rocks up with Trudi – a hayseed American Christian – on his arm.
Dinnertime disaster ensues. Everything goes wrong, starting with an oven malfunction and progressing to an inebriated confab where Kristin mercilessly judges Trudi and Claire – her other son’s squeeze and famous soap actress – with Kristin’s old friend, the jolly homo Hugh, adding camp asides. By the time Simon appears, everyone has tired of gritted smiles and retired for the night.
A powerful, tender scene between Kristin and Simon stirs troubling memories. By morning everyone has had a chance to unload. The murky context of Kristin’s decision to effectively abandon her children provides an emotionally labile anchor, and it is from the optimistic Trudi (and an objet d’art she bought for Kristin’s birthday) that a desolating comfort comes.
Some of Campbell’s script irked me. The tart rhetorical questions, initially suggesting a very English disdain, become too automatic a resort. Some speeches are anemic, failing to acquire the pulse of the dramatic situation (exceptions include Kristin’s impassioned defence of Giotto and the extended rapprochement between Kristin and Simon).
But a suave set, atmospheric piano composition and fine performances make it a production well worth seeing.
Robyn Nevin moves from directorial failure (Don Parties On) to star turn. She’s cool, charismatic, unforgiving, and wields her intellect like a scalpel. Like most famous critics, she exudes the sort of intense authority that provokes an uncontrollable urge to impress her. It’s such a controlled, effortlessly observed performance, and unbearably moving when the mask finally cracks.
Laura Gordon’s bright, curious Trudi injects herself into the English reserve like a shot of adrenaline; the self-possessed, breezy Claire makes a strong counterpoint. Ian Bliss’s Peter bristles with indignation behind the manners, and Patrick Brammall as Simon steers an intimate, gentle focus away from the raucous comedy. Ron Falk’s Hugh gets laughs, but the character is stencilled too thin.
Jennifer Flowers’ direction doesn’t deliver perfect timing in the compulsively chatty sections of dialogue; perhaps more variegation in tempo is required. But it is still a flattering production guaranteed to entertain, and through Nevin’s remarkable acting it achieves theatre’s raison d’etre – we’re left imagining what it’s like to be someone else.