Reviewed by Barry Lenny
The Adelaide Repertory Theatre Society is presenting Sharr White’s The Other Place, under the direction of David Sinclair. White’s play, his first work for the stage, had its Off-Broadway premiere in 2011, opening on Broadway in 2013.
Robyn Brookes plays 52-year-old research scientist, neurologist, Juliana Smithton who, as the play opens, is to speak at a conference in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, where she is presenting her research towards a new drug that will be made by the laboratory at which she works. In Brechtian style, she breaks the fourth wall to tell the audience, where she is, what she is doing, and her thoughts, a device that continues throughout. She often refers to ‘The Other Place’, meaning the house on Cape Cod where her family spent their summers when she was younger, and which she inherited. It takes an important place in this play.
Her husband, Ian, played by Scott Nell, is an oncologist whom, she tells Dr. Teller, is in the process of divorcing her. It was Ian who arranged for her to be treated by the doctor.
It is giving nothing away to tell that this play centres on Juliana’s early onset dementia as, on the first page of the programme, David Sinclair dedicates the production to his late sister-in-law who had suffered from it.
The three roles, Dr. Teller, Juliana’s estranged daughter, Laurel, and a stranger, are played by Tegan Gully-Crispe, and Brendan Cooney plays a medical aide, and Laurel’s considerably older husband, Richard, with whom she had eloped while underage.
As the play unfolds, we begin to question what is real, and what is her failing mind, playing tricks on her, creating fantasies mixed with inaccurate memories, and blocking out unpleasant realities.
Robyn Brookes is sensational in the role of Juliana, encompassing, in effect, numerous characters as Juliana transitions between the ever-worsening stages of dementia. It is a tour de force in an extremely complex role that Brookes clearly understands and embraces fully.
Brookes is not alone, with Scott Nell also giving a wonderful performance as Ian, trying desperately to cope with his wife’s demise, attempting to stay strong in order to support her, but becoming frustrated and, occasionally, very angry.
There are so many superb scenes between these two as her illness progresses and he cannot bear to lose the wife whom he loves. Some encounters are gentle, others are all out shouting matches. The emotional levels in this play reach both ends of the spectrum, and are dealt with authenticity by Brookes and Nell.
It doesn’t stop with the two main characters. Tegan Gully-Crispe and Brendan Cooney also turn in excellent performances in each of their roles. Gully-Crispe gives a particularly sensitive performance as the stranger, whom Juliana believes is her now grown-up daughter, Laurel, complementing her fine portrayals of the caring doctor, and the daughter who has no desire to reconnect with her mother. Cooney, too, is convincing as Richard, the concerned husband, trying to act as a barrier between Laurel and the mother she has disowned.
David Sinclair has assembled a dream cast and directed the play with great insight and subtlety. He also designed the simple but effective open frame set that becomes a diverse range of locations, assisted in the transformations by Richard Parkhill’s thoughtful lighting design.
The Rep has a production of which to be justly proud, and for which you should rush to buy tickets.
