BWW Reviews: THIS OLD MAN COMES ROLLING HOME is an Experience, Visiting the Dockerty Family

Reviewed Saturday 20th July 2013

The word 'dysfunctional' is barely adequate to describe the Dockerty family, who live in the working class Sydney suburb of Redfern in the 1950s, the subject of This Old Man Comes Rolling Home. Sixty years on, much of the material seems dated, with medical services, and various government and private agencies in existence to help with many of the problems being faced by the family. This production by Adapt Enterprises, however, focuses strongly on the way in which an alcoholic member of a family affects everybody around them.

The central character in Dorothy Hewett's first play, first performed in 1967, is the mother, Laurie, who was once, as she says, "the Belle of Bundaberg". There is more than a touch of A Streetcar Named Desire in this character, an middle aged alcoholic, clinging desperately to the past and longing for the life that she had envisaged as a girl, a life that never happened. She became pregnant and married the father of her unborn child, Tom, who was a handsome cane cutter at that time. They had children, moved to Redfern, he got a mundane job in a factory and became a member of the Communist Party, and now she bitterly laments her choice, insisting that she was destined to marry well, perhaps a doctor, or lawyer.

Hewett, who died in 2002, actually lived in Redfern at the time of the Cold War, and was a member of the Communist Party for almost a quarter of a century. She was poor and worked in the mills, so this play draws heavily on her own experiences.

Portraying a drunk, convincingly, is a difficult task, and few actors do it well. Too much staggering, over slurring of words, and falling about the stage are common problems. Cheryl Douglas, however, delivers that rare authenticity unswervingly for two hours. Not only is she a believable drunk, but the level of her drunkenness changes subtly with different scenes and times of day. As an added degree of difficulty, she also plays a woman considerably older than herself, equally as convincingly, and all that is before we actually get to the performance, with all of its emotional ups and downs. Douglas gives a truly remarkable performance in this extremely complex and difficult role, providing a rock solid foundation for the rest of the cast to build on.

The major part of the play, of course, concerns the family's relationships to, and interactions with Laurie, and how her alcoholism, depression, and bitterness affects each of them and their relationships with each other. Their lives are also affected by outside influences over which they have no control.

This is the world of the working class in the 1950's: cold, hard, depressing, and featureless, a world of survival and mere existence, not of living a life. Many countries were still trying to get back on their feet from the war, and, in 1949, the Berlin Wall was built as Communism took stronger hold. Many were disillusioned with Capitalism, and the ideals of Communism, which were never realised in practice, sounded good to them in theory. The story of the Dockerty family is not isolated from all of this, but touches on and is touched by this world outside.

Few in the audience would be old enough remember the fear of "Reds under the bed" that was prevalent at the time, or the hue and cry and resulting imprisonment and ostracisation for Anti-American Activities during the McCarthy era in America. Those with Communist sympathies and beliefs were distrusted and considered to be traitors and spies, a position created by government propaganda. That same fear swept Australia.

Laurie's husband, Tom, is the typical "Aussie Battler", heading off to work each day, returning tired and hungry to a home where nothing has been done, and where dinner offered is cold soup. Hi youngest daughter, Joycee, goes to the fish and chip shop for hot chips, his entire evening meal, supplemented only by beer. He struggles to make ends meet on his meagre income, living a dull life where every day is like every other, with no better future in sight.

Ross Vosvotekas directed the production and also plays the role of Tom, a man who is trying his hardest to remain cheerful and make the best of a bad lot. With a wife almost comatose on the settee, too drunk to do much more than find another bottle and continue drinking herself into oblivion, he is effectively a single parent. In his nicely balanced performance, Vosvotekas lets slip, occasionally, hints that Tom is reaching the end of his tether but trying to keep it hidden from the others and hold his life and family together.

Casey Ellis shows Joycee is full of boundless energy and love for her father. She gives an endearing performance in the role and the audience cannot help but feel sorry for her if her future is to be anything like that of the rest of the family. Ellis makes us hope that Joycee escapes from the fate of the others.

One of their sons, Lan, arrives with his pregnant girlfriend, Edie, and we discover that family history is repeating itself. Edie has dreams of an idyllic marriage, with a nice new house and a garden. By the time that they are married the baby is born they are still living with Tom and Laurie, she has fallen into the ways of the Dockertys, and has effectively replaced Laurie, cooking and cleaning for the family, and being more of a mother than a wife to Lan.

Lan and Edie are played by Josh Battersby and Emily McMahon, and they present their characters as a loving couple with an air of idealism, dreams of a bright future together genuinely lighting up their faces. Battersby gives a good performance as a man who is weak and takes the easy options insisted upon by his father, happy to remain in the family home and bring Edie to live there. McMahon shows that, although Edie is only sixteen, she is quick witted and sees the danger in this, trying to dissuade Lan. She handles the growth in Edie's strength and eventual outburst with great skill.

Another daughter, the illiterate and "a bit slow", Pet, arrives in tears. Her man has left her and she has come home, bringing her baby, adding two more to the list of residents. Then another son, George, drops in. He appears well-to-do, but that is only because he has married a wealthy woman. Contrary to his expectations, he has not been given free access to her money. She refuses to enter the Dockerty home and, as well as controlling the purse strings, has tight control over George.

Rachel Horbelt plays the tearful Pet, giving us a fragile young woman who takes everything at face value. Horbelt carefully displays the naivety and limited intelligence of Pet, without resorting to stereotyping.

John Dexter gives George a veneer of affluence that he maintains in the presence of the family, until they need money. He seems to shrink as he refuses the money, then shrinks further when he explains why. Dexter releases George's years of frustration in a torrent of despair that tells of his unhappiness and depression. He also plays the old man on the park bench, who comments on life.

The eldest daughter, Julie, returns from apple picking in Tasmania, bringing Fay, a naive English girl whom she has befriended. Snowy Baker also turns up, having served his time in prison. He, too, is a Communist and a friend of Tom, as well as an admirer of Julie, with whom he begins a relationship.

Delia Taylor is the self-assured and independent Julie and she gives a strong performance that shows Julie's confidence and control of her own life. Taylor makes it clear that anything that Julie does is entirely her own choice, not for somebody else, and she is a breath of fresh air in this stale and musty family.

Snowy is played by Jarred Parker, presenting a brash, swaggering young man, convinced of his own charisma and attraction to women. Parker and Taylor create a few sparks as he tries to interest her in getting together, and she plays with him, like a cat with a mouse.

Fay is given a gentle, shy persona by Amy Victoria Brooks, making her awkward in the presence of the family, who ignore her on her arrival as they bicker and fight. She maintains the shyness, becoming convincingly coy when Don first begins to chase after her.

Don is the self-centred, wastrel son, and he seduces Fay, who also becomes pregnant. For him, it was merely a fun affair, but that was not what she understood the situation to be. Graham Self gives us a most unpleasant and unfeeling young man, whose careless actions he makes believable.

Edie's mother, Mrs. Keeler, is given a straight-laced, almost po-faced characterisation by Kerry-Anne James, showing how incensed she is that, not only has Edie become pregnant out of wedlock, but to Lan Dockerty, a member of a family she considers to be lower on the social scale.

There is a little comedy to relieve the tension occasionally in the otherwise very dark production but, unfortunately, some is unintentional. With a style best described as 'social realism' a bit more attention could have been paid to maintaining that realistic appearance, starting with a decent beard for the old man who sleeps on a park bench. Then there are the three old ladies who talk to him, a Greek chorus who look like they have stepped out of a Monty Python sketch, appearing as what that team referred to as "pepper-pots", comic caricatures. These little things do detract from the drama and break the intensity that is being built up.

On the plus side, it was fun, as a way of creating a sense of period, to see the old black and white television commercials of that time being projected onto a screen, as well as to hear some of the songs of the 1950s as the projection paraphernalia was removed and during scene changes.

The set also conveyed both the period and the working class situation, with a well thought out lighting plot making the most of The Combined interior/exterior set. It may not have as much relevance now as it did when it was written, but this Australian play, set in another time, with another set of values, another society, free of globalisation, and with an almost lost vernacular, is worth seeing as it is seldom performed and for younger audiences will tell them where they came from.

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