Review: Ambition And Aspiration Collide With Desire And Devotion In The Powerfully Moving DIVING FOR PEARLS

Thursday 14th September 2017, 7pm, SBW Stables Kings Cross

Emotional, engaging and at times enraging as the audience empathises with the inhabitants of a community making way for progress, DIVING FOR PEARLS is a wonderfully rendered work that considers compassion, conscience and conduct in the face of corporate and individual greed and determination. Director Darren Yap's presentation of Katherine Thompson's story of the corporate cost cutting and crippling of industrial towns in favour of excess and luxury in the 1980's proves that society hasn't changed all that much in the intervening quarter of a century.

Set in an oceanside town built on the back of coal mines and steel works, DIVING FOR PEARLS sees the seemingly strong Barbara (Ursula Yovich) trying to put her crappy life, which was always slated for failure according to her parents and teachers, back on track following a divorce and break up of a short romance with the meek and mild Den (Steve Rodgers). While Barbara is ambitious, loud and brash, the quiet and unassuming Den is content with his life as a labourer in the steelworks, living alone in the cluttered family home. Barbara believes Den is too boring for her until he shows her an article stating that his job is secure and that there is hope for the steelworks, news that Den only believes because he's been told by his brother-in-law Ron (Jack Finsterer), back in town to apparently help turn the Steelworks around. Den knows that Barbara wants financial security and Barbara knows that Den is besotted with her, potentially the loner's first and only love. She continues to boss him around and throw thinly veiled insults at him but he's too swept up in love to realise, only wanting to keep her happy at all costs. He's compassionate and accommodating, even when the mentally handicapped daughter Verge (Ebony Vagulans) who Barbara has never mentioned turns up, making room for the instant family he has found himself with. Enjoying the new romance with Barbara and the rekindled friendship with Ron, Den is also too trusting, believing Ron's assertions that that the Steelworks are safe from government departmental restructures that have seen many unskilled workers retrenched.

Set and Costume designer James Browne has created an incredibly detailed and inventive set to take the audience to the various locations that make up Barbara and Den's world of the oceanside working class town that sits as an industrial blight in rainforests with views to rival the Mediterranean. The grassy hillside makes way for the soot covered pipes of the steelworks with the aid of a manually operated crank handle, adding to the industrial connection. A somewhat basic table with lamp and chair at side of the stage represents Den's home whilst a metal locker at the other side represent his work and ladies cluttered dresser sits at the end of the traverse stage. A Model railway set is also revealed when the hill side is lifted and the miniature buildings from the set blink out of nooks and crannies around the set, representing the town's position on the slopes overlooking the water. Costuming reinforces the 1980's blue collar community along with the differences in the characters. Den's life is work and home with no aspiration for anything more, until he falls in love and wants to please BarbarA. Barbara aspires to a better life and Browne uses her clothing to show her growth from lowly paid factory sewer to student studying at Finishing school of sorts in order to secure a job as a Hostess at the new hotel being constructed by the beach.

Yap has created an honest and raw expression of the Aussie Battler and he had gathered a fabulous cast to represent that different types of people that make up the working-class struggle to survive. Yovich is bold and loud as the determined but volatile, self-absorbed Barbara who knows how to manipulate Den to get what she wants, revealing the possibility that she's never really loved him, but rather sees him as a meal ticket. She draws sympathy to start but when the truth of Barbara's narcissism starts to show, Yovich ensures that the audience sees that Barbara will survive, but it will be alone, still clinging to the next lofty and lonely ambition. Finsterer as Den's brother-in-law Ron captures the oiliness of stereotypical corporate middle men that also use people to save their own skin, planting ideas to gain trust then making excuses and shifting blame when the promises don't eventuate. He expresses Ron's challenge of wanting to protect Den but also needing to meet his KPI's and satisfy his bosses along with the spinelessness that means that he's unwilling to stand up to Den's sister when she wants to sell the family home.

As Barbara's sister Marj, Michelle Doake captures the essence of the holier-than-thou, judgemental do-gooder martyr whilst still retaining a glimmer of goodness and genuine care for her niece. Doake ensures that the loneliness of the 'good girl' older sister's life attending to the priest at a northern suburbs rectory is subtly noted whilst she looks down her nose at the society she managed to rise out of, which she reinforces with what she believes is a more refined speech pattern. As Barbara's daughter Virginia, or Verge as she prefers to be called, Ebony Vagulans delivers a beautiful performance that ensures that from the first sighting, the audience realises that the young woman has challenges without overplaying them or mocking people with real disabilities. Vagulans presents Verge's intellectual disability with a vulnerability and innocence which futher accentuates Barbara's bitter treatment towards the child she tried to hide from her vision of a perfect future with Den. Vagulans shows Verge's growth when shown attention and care from Den along with her own strength and resilience and understanding of right and wrong.

The stand out performance however comes from Steve Rodgers as Den. Rodgers ensures that Den is seen as a gentle giant, resigned to a life in the steelworks, keeping his head down and out of trouble, eating lunch alone while reading paperback westerns. Den is an amalgam of every loner, good guy and caring soul that usually gets overlooked in favour of excitement, as Barbara almost does, and Rodgers ensures that he is presented with an honesty without making him look like a complete sap, although it is necessary to be a bit pathetic to convey the weight of his love and devotion to Barbara. Rodgers ensures that Den's innocence despite his age is evident as he handles Barbara with kit gloves, always unsure if he's doing the right thing, only to be met with her harsh and insulting "you should know". He conveys Den's quiet caution around new things but counters this with his general trust in the people closest to him which causes him to miss the clue to Barbara's true intentions and Ron's veiled warnings. His interactions with Vagulans' Verge are delightful as he shows Den getting to be a father figure, connecting with Verge through poetry, birdwatching and his model railway, making Barbara's accusations even more biting and his protection of the innocent more determined in a performance that resulted in at least a few damp eyes in the audience and the tense feeling of wanting to defend Den from Barbara's vitriol.

This truly Australian work which highlights the people and places of our not too distant past also shows that we haven't come that far, still dealing with manufacturing towns being shut down for corporate progress in favour of off shore factories as costs are cut. In addition to the corporate greed, business buzz words and general corporate wank, DIVING FOR PEARLS is also a universal story of honesty and compassion and how it sits alongside ambition, greed and self-preservation. With a fabulous cast, a relatable story and an intricate and inventive set, DIVING FOR PEARLS is a must see production.

DIVING FOR PEARLS

SBW Stables Theatre

8 September - 28 October 2017

Australia - Sydney Awards - Live Stats

Best Musical - Top 3

1. MJ THE MUSICAL (Sydney Lyric Theatre)

8.1% of votes

2. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (Gosford Musical Society)

6.9% of votes

3. A CHORUS LINE (Curtain Bounce)

6.4% of votes

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