BWW Reviews : VERE (FAITH) is a Moving Account of a Once Great Mind Succumbing to Dementia

Reviewed Wednesday 16th October 2013

The State Theatre Company of South Australia, in association with the Sydney Theatre Company, is presenting Vere (Faith), by John Doyle, under the direction of Sarah Goodes. Vere is translated from a Slavic name as "faith", but it is interesting to speculate on the dichotomy if we translate vere from the Latin instead, since that means truth, the Latin for faith being fides. One of the themes in this play is the conflict between truth and faith in the forms of science and religion and, from the ridicule that Doyle heaps upon it, it is clear that he has little time for the teachings of those who blindly accept the existence of some all powerful entity that cannot be proven to exist.

On the side of science is Vere, professor of physics, who is looking forward to a trip to Switzerland, to CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire or European Council for Nuclear Research), and the Large Hadron Collider, where the search is on for the Higgs boson, the visible manifestation of the Higgs field. Particles are accelerated, almost reaching the speed of light, and made to collide with each other to see how they interact in order to understand the fundamental laws of physics. For Vere, proving the existence of the Higgs boson with satisfy the Standard Model, and he wants to photograph it to prove the existence.

Unfortunately for Vere, he finishes his last lecture before the holidays only to be given the results of medical tests, Marissa informing him that he is suffering the onset of dementia of the type that has Lewy bodies or, as it is put in the play, "with all the bells and whistles". He is told that his deterioration will be rapid, and that he is extremely unlikely to get to Switzerland. He already has problems with incontinence, and has occasional hallucinations of his late wife, Holly, in a red dress.

The remainder of the first act involves the various people who share the office with Vere, Simon, Kate, and Mike, arriving to pack up and go on holidays. Ralph, the Vice-Chancellor drops in, too, and reveals himself to be a hopeless old lecher, making far too obvious advances and pawing at Vere's top student, Gina. They open a cheap bottle of red wine, which soon vanishes, and Vere pulls out a bottle of 1954 Grange Hermitage that he was given by the then Prime Minister, Harold Holt, in 1967, and that he has saved for the last 44 years for a special occasion. He knows that he is not going to be able to save it for his trip, and shares it around as it is his birthday, to be followed by yet another bottle of cheap red. In vino veritas, and the wine does indeed bring out a few truths.

It also brings forth a range of terrible puns and jokes reflecting a range of academic disciplines, and shows the wider range of knowledge possessed by Vere beyond his own field, of physics. Aside from everything from the Big Bang to the Higgs boson he wanders through, archaeology, poetry, philology, semantics, and more. We see what a fine mind he possesses. Gina has a first edition of How Labor Governed by Vere Gordon Childe, signed by the author and by Herbert Vere Evatt, the Australian statesman. She wants Vere to sign it to complete her idea "the three great Veres". This is a catalyst for a discussion that then goes in all directions in which beetroot figures prominently.

In the second act we find him a month later, at home with his son, Scott, daughter-in-law, Melissa, and their son, Michael. He is already seriously affected, but has moments of lucidity. Tonight is one occasion that they really need him to be in control of his mind as the son is bringing home his fiancée, Gianna, and her parents Ralph and Roger, for dinner. All does not go well, even before they arrive. It transpires that the girl's father, Ralph, is a minister and the other two are cliché quoting members of his flock which, apparently, now also includes Michael.

Vere has a few moments where he seems to connect with his knowledge and memory, but he also calls the three visitors by the names of his previous colleagues, and refers to discussions that he remembers having with them, about which they know nothing, of course. There are all sorts of confusions and, as Vere, Scott, and Melissa are atheists, considerable conflict.

In the role of Vere, the highly popular and very talented Paul Blackwell creates such a realistic character, with a wonderfully sensitive interpretation that, in spite of the occasionally rather overdone comedy in the script, moves the audience as we see a great mind coming unravelled. Vere's decline and his frustration at his own failing faculties, made sharply clear to him in his lucid moments, are handled superbly by Blackwell, who has understood all of the emotional upheavals of his character, and found all of the nuances needed for a convincing performance.

Ksenja Logos appears only briefly in the first act, as the doctor, Marissa, delivering the bad news but, in the second act she is Melissa, Vere's daughter-in-law, desperately trying to keep the dinner party on track in the face of compounding problems. Logos walks Melissa along a thin line between panic, anger, despair, and a veneer of relaxed control. We see Melissa metaphorically biting her tongue in response to the inanity and professEd Moral superiority of their visitors, until she snaps, Logos building the inner tensions to that wholly believable conclusion in a well measured performance.

Yalin Ozucelik, who was Simon in the first act, a "nerd" from top to toe, through to the TARDIS on his desk, becomes Vere's son, Scott, in the second. His path corresponds in part to that of Melissa, but he has the stronger connection to his father, Vere, and an emotional attachment there that distracts him somewhat from the annoyances of their visitors. There are some lovely moments in Ozucelik's performance where Scott interacts closely with Vere, and he shows us real commitment to the role when, in one of Vere's lucid moments, father and son make a rare connection.

Matthew Gregan changes from Mike, the young and scruffy lecturer with bad habits, to Michael, the son of Scott and Melissa. Gregan carefully balances his characterisation such that one is never quite sure whether he really is a born again Christian, or just going through the motions to satisfy his prospective bride and in-laws, until his rebellious nature is revealed as he speaks out against his parents and, even then, there is still a cleverly instilled niggling element of doubt as to what the future will show.

Geoff Morrell switches from the morally bankrupt Ralph to become the single minded minister, Roger, and Rebecca Massey, who was Kate, becomes his ignorant and socially inept wife Katherine, while Matilda Bailey changes from the brightest of students, Gina, to their vacuous, shallow daughter, Gianna. These three performers are something of a tightly knit mini ensemble, each of the trio portraying a distinct character, yet each of those characters so similar in their outlooks and beliefs that it is easy to accept that they are a family, indoctrinated in their beliefs by Roger, who was in turn indoctrinated by his religious training and, probably, his parents before him. They work as a real team, supporting each other in word and in every glance or nod of approval.

Bailey also appears occasionally in a red dress, silently, as Vere's late wife, Holly, in her younger days. At the end of the first act we see her and hear what he refers to as her favourite music, a slow wordless version of the Flower Duet, for coloratura soprano and mezzo-soprano, from the opera, Lakmé, by Léo Delibes, and his late wife and this music, made ethereal by this new arrangement, reappears under Blackwell's final, very poignant and moving speech at the end of the play, his last lucid moment.

Of necessity, the sets, costumes and lighting are relatively simple; modern dress, the office, and the dining room at home, with largely on or off lighting, other than a few effects when Vere "sees" his young wife. If there is a fault it is that, where John Doyle refers to his play as a black comedy, the director, Sarah Goodes, does tend to push it a bit too hard at times, lightening that darkness and threatening to move it into farce, with could take away from the more serious aspects of Vere's decline through his Altzheimer's Disease.

State Theatre once again have another successful piece of theatre on their hands, with nods and words of approval flowing as the audience left the Dunstan Playhouse at the Adelaide Festival Centre.

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