Melbourne Reviews

Described as “a powerful meditation of life, death and change”, The Lark is an incredible new solo work written specially for national treasure Noni Hazlehurst by celebrated playwright Daniel Keene and directed by award winning director, Matt Scholten. Keene, Hazlehurst and Scholten, are of the course the creative trio behind the critically acclaimed production of Mother which, after years of touring across Australia opened at Arts Centre Melbourne exactly 12 months ago.

With bravery and compassion for complex social issues, Daniel Keene’s extraordinarily back catalogue is rich in empathetically elevating the voices of the barely visible. With warmth and incredible humour, residing within Keene’s powerful gift for story is an echoing, resonating reminder that the seemingly most ordinary of lives are in fact full and deserving. In The Lark, who better than a publican to share observations of life on both sides of the counter.

While Mother was perhaps a more uncomfortable and confronting watch given the dire and desperate circumstances of homeless woman Christie, publican Rose Grey arrives as another in Keene’s incredible stable of stoics. Keene’s characters don’t move us to care because of what they ask but because of what they tell. Deeply layered, rich in allusion, humour and subtlety this is writing that lingers beyond our time in the theatre and implores us to invest a little longer in those on street or maybe even those behind a bar. Rose’s punters are there, real, ignited and animated as she perceptively recounts their years of intersection.

Emily Barrie’s dilapidated bar design and Darius Kedros’ haunting sound scape generates a Rhone like quality of life that just upped and left. The shell of a pub, the barely audible clink of glass, the ding of tram, a lark; the passing lives that moved and resided through this space; the rubble and the remains. 

We meet Rose in her lifelong home as she pauses, painfully, one last time, to reflect upon a life lived in the heart of others’ lives. Her silent observations, compassion, her trove of secrets and her inalienable connection to place. Keene has created a fully dimensional character, detailed, witty and complex and with the insightful guidance of Matt Scholten, Noni Hazlehurst lifts Keene’s words from the page and completes her. Noni is once again astonishing alone on stage, commanding, gentle, kind and vulnerable. She whispers directly to our core and she lands.

This is such beautiful work from all involved and we’re left hoping for more. Our lives are richer for Rose and as with Mother, only Noni could do this for us and only Noni could do this to us – she’s simply remarkable.

Go before she calls “Time”.