Left – Bobbie-Jean Henning, Jodie Le Vesconte and Jane Phegan. Cover – Jodie Le Vesconte. Photos – Clare HawleyA big deck.
Designer Alice Morgan’s big deck set dominates the space for Kate Gaul’s production of The Trouble With Harry by Lachlan Philpott.
From this deck, a man and a woman, dressed in contemporary garb in hues of blue, begin the play with a description of an immolation, maybe murder, a female in flaming free fall, descending past their deck into the leafy Lane Cove flora, their speech synthed in a syncopation of conversation.
These two act as a chorus to the drama’s main game, an exploration of Eugenie Fellini, an early 20th century cross dresser who became a notorious cause celebre in Sydney.
Eugenie went by the name of Harry Crawford. He was a she masquerading as a man, and that was the trouble with Harry. His masquerade was fully immersive, culminating in matrimony to a widow, Annie Berkett, and the foster fatherhood of her son, Harry.
Deception aided by the judicious use of a dildo and a consummate portrayal of male manifestations – piss swilling, tough talking, disciplinarian mien, dick swinging swagger and suit and tie attire – keep the conjugal conjuring convincing until a whispering campaign creates cavities in credibility.
The appearance of Harry’s daughter, Josephine – he is her biological mother, conceived from a high seas rape – and the discovery of him menstruating by his stepson fuel suspicion and fan the winds of gossip.
The Trouble With Harry shares its title with a classic Hitchcock black comedy about a body serially buried and exhumed. Philpott’s script is about identity burial and exhumation in a “heteronormative” society, a society with an insatiable desire for the salacious.
There’s nothing salacious or sensational about Gaul’s staging however. Her depiction of domestic life within the Harry/Annie/Harry home is as routinely real as a Ruth Park scenario.
Jodie Le Vesconte portrayal of Harry/Eugenia is natural and non-exaggerated, as is Jane Phegan as Annie. Similarly naturalistic performances are given by Bobbie-Jean Henning as Josephine and Jonas Thomson as Harry Birkett.
The meta-theatricality comes from the chorus, a descant of gossips, Niki Owen and Thomas Campbell.
With The Trouble With Harry, Philpott has created a theatrical palimpsest, applying an inquisitive imagination to fragmentary facts, firing up discussion on gender, sex and ethnic prejudices.
Siren Theatre Co presents
The Trouble With Harry
by Lachlan Philpott
Director Kate Gaul
Venue: Mechanics Institute | 270 Sydney Rd, Brunswick VIC
Dates: 16 February – 3 March 2017
Bookings: www.sirentheatreco.com
