This is a tense family drama, measured with some humour, written by two local playwrights. It is the play’s second production, the first being performed by the Sutherland Theatre Company, where they had both been members for over thrity years.
The play’s setting is the coming together of three adult siblings in the family home after the wake for their mother’s passing. There is the expectation that their late mother’s wishes be respected in that she wanted her estate shared equally between her three children with the understanding that her only daughter Linda, who had cared for her at home for the last ten years before she had to go in to care, would be able to stay in the family home.
Whilst the others are out of the room, older brother Brian reveals to his wife Donna, that his company is about to go bust. They had been living ‘high on the hog’ for a long time, only last year the family had a great holiday in New York. The reality was that his printing business had nosedived as a result of the digital revolution. Without a minute’s hesitation, Donna tells him that his late mother’s wishes have to be vetoed. Her family home will have to be sold and then they will get through the crisis. They will just have to tell the others….
The play fully engaged the audience, with emotions running high on stage. Hayley Poulton played the brazen, outspoken Donna and Anthony White played her ‘under the thumb’, acquiescent husband.
Karys Kennedy as Jenny and Mat Sigmund as Russell have their own issues which are challenging them and make Brian’s request for the family home to be sold and divied up very attractive.
Mel Day plays Linda who has to contend with the fact that the security that her mum had verbally promised her (Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn famously said, ‘A verbal promise isn’t worth the paper that it is written on’) was now being swept from underneath her .
Brawley’s set of the living room of the family home is a finely detailed period set. Costumes were by the two directors and the cast. The sound design was by Kim Jones and lighting design by Roger Hind and Ruth Lawey.
There’s plenty of heart written in to this play and which is conveyed in this production. This overrode a narrative that wasn’t always credible.
Scott Brawley and Robert Stewart’s BEYOND CARING, directed by Scott Brawley and Christiane Brawley, is playing the Theatre Guild, Walz street, Rockdale, just five minutes from Rockdale train station, until the 8th September 2024.
