BWW Reviews: THE PERFECTIONIST Revives An Early And Rarely Performed Play By David Williamson

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Saturday 25th July 2015

Adapt Enterprises Pty. Ltd. has turned to one of Australia's best-known and most prolific playwrights, David Williamson, for their latest production, The Perfectionist.

Barbara and Stuart Gunn have three children but, as they are no longer babies and in need of constant maternal attention, Barbara decides to return to her PhD thesis. Stuart is not happy about this, and even less so when she hires a young Danish man, Erik, to be their babysitter while she is attending lectures at the university. This play is yet another look at that infernal; eternal triangle.

Stuart is the perfectionist of the title, still working on his PhD thesis in economics, nine years in the writing and still fiddling with it around the edges, in an attempt to get it perfect. His mother is an alcoholic actress who never made it, and his father is a bombastic lawyer who still thinks Stuart is going to be a great man. When circumstances change and Stuart's thesis becomes entirely irrelevant, having waited far too long to publish, he see nine years of his life and work swept away. Adding this to realising that Barbara and Erik are having an affair, for which he fires Erik, he sees his life crumbling around him. There is worse yet to come.

This play is not a deeply serious look at a marriage in crisis. It is, instead, a lightweight load of froth and bubble that, in its day, it premiered in 1981, might have had greater appeal, but now seems rather twee and outdated. Williamson's works, by and large, were written for their time and, equally, seem to have a 'use by' date, as though Williamson himself is caught in some time warp, still living in the era of the heyday of the Australian Labor Party and its glorious leader, Gough Whitlam. His political plays, even the more recent ones, are a pathetic call to return to that era of government, as if he is totally unaware of how Australia, Australian politics, world economics, and many other factors make that completely impossible.

Change and upheaval began after the Second World War and accelerated through the 1960s into the 1970s. This work is set in the tail end of that era where the man was still considered the wage earner and the woman the housewife, but things have already changed for Stuart and Barbara. They have both been working towards a PhD but, linking to those past role models, she has put hers on hold to raise the children, while he works on his. She has found, and is reading a book titled Open Marriage, and considering the possibilities that it suggests. When we meet his parents, Kim York and Rick Mills as Shirley and Jack, we see those old roles in action as he dominates her and puts her down. Her alcoholism can be seen as a response to his overbearing destruction of her independence. He tries to impose his views in Stuart and Barbara, but Barbara has gained in strength.

Putting the datedness of the play to one side, and looking at the production itself as a historical piece, it is interesting to go back to the late 70s and revisit the social mores of that time. A lot has changed in those 34 years.

The production is directed by Ross Vosvotekas, who also plays Stuart. This is always a risky enterprise and few, even highly experienced actors and directors, will attempt it. The ability to objectively and critically look at your own performance is difficult, even if viewing a video recording, and other cast members are reluctant to say anything derogatory. It also more than doubles the workload, and divides the focus.

Vosvotekas has kept a firm hand on his direction, beginning with some good casting decisions. He makes good use of the space, keeps the pace up, explores the relationships, and creates movement that is appropriately driven by the script. The production, though, tends to be all on one level, the emotional aspects needing to be given more emphasis. His own character, Stuart, is remote and self-absorbed but, even so, we see more of the actor acting than of the character and, perhaps, tackling two jobs as once has taken another victim.

Cheryl Douglas plays Barbara in a wonderful performance, showing Barbara's emancipation and growing self-confidence in probably Williamson's first role for women given a solid, three dimensional treatment. Dopuglas doesn't miss the significance of this and displays the rise of feminism within this family microcosm with great skill, in a richly rewarding portrayal.

Chris Knight does a very fine job as Erik, his Danish accent both convincing and consistent. Hampered, obviously, by the lack of Danish people in Adelaide to learn from, I am informed that he took to Youtube to find as many examples as possible on which to base his accent. If only all local actors would go to this effort in similar circumstances. His fine interpretation of Erik is that of a likeable young man who takes an interest in Barbara and the children, and Barbara's attraction to him is understandable.

Kim York and Rick Mills play Stuart's parents. Mill's presents Jack as very old school, dismissing Barbara's PhD thesis as an irrelevance, an indulgence, and suggesting she should abandon it in favour of being a diligent homemaker, to allow Stuart to focus on his PhD. He blindly sees Stuart as being far greater than he really is. His views on the role of a wife explain why his own wife, Shirley, who abandoned a possibly glittering career in the theatre, is now a dejected alcoholic. York's Shirley is a repressed individual and she visibly shows the load lifting when she releases years of pent up feelings.

York and Mills, in spite of Williamson's claims to write in a naturalist style, are handed stereotypes in these two roles and, to a degree, so is Knight, so it is to their credit that they manage to make more of them than the script suggests. The focus of Williamson's writing is really on Barbara and Stuart, the other three largely being catalysts, or triggers for action, to change the relationship between the two primary characters. Vosvotekas comes into his own when they reverse roles and, again, Stuart overdoes it in his striving for perfection. Stuart does not realise that he is driving Barbara away from him, in his efforts to bring her closer, into the arms of Erik. Vosvotekas seems much more at home is this comical part of the play and Douglas provides him with a perfect foil.

The Bakehouse theatre is renowned for good work and this is another that should send you down to the end of Angas Street in Adelaide, even on a very cold, wet and windy evening such as we had on opening night.

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