Review: Bizarre and Grotesque, THE HAM FUNERAL Draws Griffin Audiences Into A Surreal World Of Grief, Grudges, And Growth

Wednesday 31st May 2017, 7pm, SBW Stables Kings Cross

PatRick White's bizarre play, THE HAM FUNERAL is given new life in the intimate space of Griffin Theatre's SBW Stables. First presented in Adelaide in 1961, Director and producer Kate Gaul ensures that this once shocking work still retains an aura of absurdity as she draws the audience to bare witness to the events surrounding the decrepit post war lodging house.

The premise of the work is that the poet come narrator, "the Young Man" (Sebastian Robinson) is telling the story of the taciturn landlord Will Lusty (Johnny Nasser) and his loud mouthed wife Alma (Eliza Logan) who live in the basement of the decrepit, rat investment lodging house where the poet rents an upper floor room. The poet is a somewhat lazy recluse with a bizarre obsession with "The Girl" (Jenny Wu), the mysterious occupant of another of the rooms according to Mrs Lusty's observation so she sets about getting the Young Man out of his room to join the Lusty's in a meagre tea of bread and drippings. Its at this awkward gathering where the effort of a rare speech from Mr Lusty seems to drive him to death. Mr Lusty's demise causes the Young Man to gather the courage to seek out the landlord's estranged relatives (Johnny Nasser, Andy Dexterity, Jane Phegan, Carmen Lysiak) for the wake, meeting interesting characters (Jane Phegan, Andy Dexterity) on the way and resulting in an incredibly awkward wake where Mrs Lusty serves ham to hostile in-laws.

Designer Jasmine Christie has created an amalgum of the squalor of the Lusty's decaying dingy accommodations and the severe sterility of a morgue with an industrial bench and black linoleum floor paired with a leadlight lampshade and an assortment of wooden chairs and the accoutrements of domestic life. Hartley T A Kemp's lighting allows Gaul to imply the distance between the Young Man's upper floor room and the Lusty's basement living quarters as well as his adventures out into the streets to seek out Mr Lusty's relatives. Composer and Sound designer Nate Edmondson brings the decaying, vermin infested house to life with a persistent 'breathing' and the distant sound of a busy city. Christie has turnEd White's already bizarre characters into grotesque caricatures with grubby clothes, heaving bust lines, and ludicrous makeup to emphasise that these were the outcasts of society, forgotten and rejected. In contrast, she has kept the young man relatively normal, alluding to his sensibility and innocence which is only topped by the ethereal Girl who exists in the Young Man's mind.

The stand out performances come from Eliza Logan's bold, brash portrayal as the middle-aged housewife who longs for conversation and society, constantly talking of excursions where she's enjoyed trying to be posh, going to the Th-e-ater. Logan ensures that Alma is loud, pushy, opinionated but still has a vulnerability and sensitivity, whether it be being worn down by Mr Lusty's vicious relatives or being rejected by the Young Man.

A bizarre story, filled with ludicrous characters, THE HAM FUNERAL sees growth, love, compassion, aspiration and ambition come out of death with humour and a degree of disbelief.

THE HAM FUNERAL

SBW Stables, Kings Cross

17 May - 10 June 2017

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