Review: LETTERS TO LINDY Gives An Amazing Insight Into One Of Australia's Most High Profile Cases Through The Archive Of Letters Sent To Lindy Chamberlain.

Saturday 14th July 2018, 7:30pm, Lennox Theatre, Riverside Parramatta

Alana Valentine blends the detail from the thousands of letters sent to Lindy Chamberlain with a reconstruction and re-imagination of events to deliver an insight into what life was like for one of Australia's most iconic figures following the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain on August 17 1980. LETTERS TO LINDY shares the strength and surprisingly good humour the wrongly convicted mother showed in the face of heartbreak and injustice from both the justice system and the wider Australian community.

For those that are unfamiliar with the story that captivated a nation for much of the '80's, mother Alice Lynne "Lindy" Chamberlain was convicted on 29 October 1982 for the murder of her two month old daughter Azaria whilst on a family camping trip to Uluru in August of 1980 despite Lindy maintaining that she saw a dingo leave the tent where the child was sleeping and an earlier inquiry finding that a dingo took the child. Along with the ordeal of suspect inquests that relied on circumstantial evidence and lead to 3 years in prison, Lindy was also subjected to media scrutiny and speculation that fuelled a raft of responses that ranged from sympathy to abuse, often delivered in the form of letters that Lindy has since donated to the National Library of Australia. This venom and compassion, along with Valentine's imagining of how Lindy may have felt and reacted, is presented through a woven story that breaks the fourth wall and has the letters recited by the small ensemble of Jane Phegan, Phillip Hinton and Glenn Hazeldine who support Jeanette Cronin's representation of Lindy.

Designer James Browne has created a neat domestic space with a dining room and lounge room with daybed and a multitude of archive boxes. Semi-transparent walls and shuttered windows work with Jasmin Rizk's lighting design to reveal the ensemble which Director Darren Yap has 'haunting' Lindy as she recounts her experiences from the horrifying discovery of a dingo leaving her tent to memories of the trials and inquests to the time spent in prison. Browne's use of costuming and wigs allows Cronin to transform between an older Lindy to the carefree mother on holiday with her family to being pregnant with Kahlia and the years she spent at Darwin's maximum security prison. The rest of the ensemble are kept in the same costumes with minor additions as they take on the roles of other characters, from Lindy's second son Reagan, court officials and witnesses called to testify at the inquests.

Cronin delivers an endearing expression of a woman that one would expect would be much more bitter than Cronin expresses given what she has dealt with but the program notes that indicate Lindy Chamberlain Creighton has actually attended the show's opening and stated that the work captured the truth of her experience. Cronin captures Lindy's complexity and fortitude in being able to still rise above the treatment from the public, media and courts. She expresses a particular 'brightness' in the recounting the memories, in some ways representing coming to terms with the past and being prepared to tell the story and move on. There is a wonderful humour within the work that at one moment has you laughing out loud and the next, shocked at the truth of the injustice. For many in the audience, they will remember the story, either having lived through the early eighties or seeing the movies, particularly EVIL ANGELS starring Meryl Streep, but the retelling from a first person perspective gives the memories an added weight.

The voices of the letter writers are presented artfully with Phegan, Hazeldine, and Hinton adopting accents to convey the different writers. Given the challenge of having only three ensemble performers, Yap has not constrained himself to gender for the letters which adds a nice twist when the writer is revealed. Valentine's inclusion of the poetry that formed part of the letters adds a nice variety to the speech patterns. Max Lambert's compositions, putting some of the poems to music adds a delightful comic interlude as well.

LETTERS TO LINDY is an engaging night of theatre that would be of interest to anyone regardless of whether you were alive in the early eighties or not. An interesting look at society and how it jumps to conclusions, can be manipulated by the media, and criticises and judges those that don't fit the norm, Lindy's religious affiliations as a Seventh-day Adventist being a continuing source of prejudice for a public that were predominantly Catholic or Anglican.

LETTERS TO LINDY

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