THEATRE: PARLOUR SONG
A popular parlour song of the 1800s sweetly trilled, “Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” Two hundred years later and our homes are more likely to resemble palaces, with very little humility amidst the shiny concrete and marble. “[Parlour Song] looks at the crack in the suburban dream, that they’re constantly plastering over and don’t want to look at,” says director Cristabel Sved of UK playwright Jez Butterworth’s 2008 peek through the keyhole at materialist malaise and midlife crises. In it, a demolition expert Ned, his wife Joy, and their next door neighbours Dale and Lyn, “Are striving to exist and make meaning of their lives …The more they strive, the emptier their lives seem – it’s a horrible paradox,” laughs Sved. Ironically, “What brings the community together is the blowing up of the local shopping centre, and that’s when the brass band comes out, and the kiddies dance with their fathers.” From this, it’s quite clear that Butterworth doesn’t think highly of the ‘dream.’ While set in the UK – although Sved has ditched the accents – it’s a critique that is particularly relevant in Australia today, which since the GFC has eclipsed the USA with the size of its houses and per capita suburban sprawl. “It’s set in McMansionville really … so it’s pretty apt for the way we’re – regardless of the sustainability of these kinds of communities – still hurtling towards whatever we’re hurtling towards!” For Ned and Joy, this is a marital breakdown, highlighted by a, “Lovely device,” where all the, “Stuff they’ve accumulated is disappearing,” – cufflinks, the lawnmower, a birdbath – in an attempt to, “Stave off the great emptiness”. “It’s a story that’s been told a lot,” admits Sved, “But [Butterworth] has done it in an interesting way. He’s telling it with light comedy, dark comedy, and it’s got this kind of erotic, menacing underbelly.” There’s no place like home, indeed.
May 14-Jun 6, Belvoir St Downstairs, 25 Belvoir St, Surry Hills, $24-32, 9699 3444, www.belvoir.com.au
