The Rafferty’s Room at the Parramatta Riverside Theatre is home to a fine new Australian musical, Lorrae Desmond and Gael Ballantyne’s play ‘Honey’, which is an adaptation of Bryce Courtenay’s story, ‘Smoky Joe’s Cafe’. Couretnay’s story is set in the early 1970’s with Australian soldiers returning from the war in Vietnam to civilian life, and the disruptive time that it created.
In terms of the plot, think of stories like ‘The Big Monty’. Its about a group of people who band together to raise funds to resolve a difficult situation. In ‘Honey’, the group is a group of Vietnam veterans who come together to raise funds, by of all things running a marijuana plantation, so that one of their own, Thommo, can afford to pay for his young daughter Honey’s bone marrow transplant as she is suffering from leukemia.
My take on ‘Honey’; this was a play and a production that vividly and movingly portrays the world and the spirit of the Vietnam veteran. Strongly recommended.
