Review: VISITING MR GREEN at Domain Theatre

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Friday 18th October 2024

Visiting Mr Green, by American playwright Jeff Baron, sits comfortably for Galleon on the Domain Theatre stage. Vicky Horwood has two fine actors, Andrew Clark and Andrew Horwood, to articulate the story.

Andrew Clark is Ross Gardiner, a middle-aged professional, whose weekly visits to meet Mr Green are court ordered, after an accident. The Mr Green in question is an elderly man whose wife has recently died. They are both Jews. Ross Gardiner feels adrift in his religion. Mr Green clings to his orthodoxy, the rituals of which have cost him his daughter. She married out, that is, to a non-Jew. Green sat shiva for her, the funeral ritual in which she is declared dead to him.

Director Horwood minimises the accents and the Yiddishkeit, though there is a handy glossary included in the program. Believe me, the sound and the rhythm of the story would be very different done authentically. Goyim shouldn’t worry too much. In that glossary is the word ‘faygele’, originally ’little bird’ but here homosexual. That is the factor that limits Gardiner’s life.

Each visit sees Gardiner taking care of Green, buying him food from the kosher deli, tidying his house, and picking him up off the floor when he collapses. Suddenly, he has someone to care for and about. The resolution of the play is no surprise. Green’s late wife had written and received many letters from their daughter, and many phone calls. Green had never bothered to fix his phone or check his mailbox. Gardiner arranges first contact and then a visit.

The set, the lounge of Green’s apartment, is meticulously arranged and dressed. There is food in the cupboards and the fridge. The door to the corridor is painted and numbered. Little things catch the eye. Andrew Clark wears a different outfit every time he comes through that door, and Horwood sports a shiny Tallit in one scene. That’s the blue-striped and fringed prayer shawl. You don’t have to be Jewish to identify with the people and their issues.
Meeting Mr Green is a neat choice for Galleon Theatre, personal and sympathetic. It is very well done.