REVIEW: Epic Ambitions Run Parallel The Everyday Aspirations As Two Groups Of Stories, Over A Century Apart Play Out In DO NOT GO GENTLE.

Friday 2nd June 2023, 7:30pm, Roslyn Packer Theatre

Patricia Cornelius’ 2011 NSW Premier’s Literary Award For Drama winning DO NOT GO GENTLE is presented with stunning effect by Director Paige Rattray.  Drawing from Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”, penned in 1947, this work pairs the poem ‘s sentiment of resisting death with the epic struggle against the odds faced by the Terra Nova Expedition’s South Pole party and the daily struggle of five contemporary individuals facing their own mortality.

The work has an intriguing complexity, at first seeming like it is a simple recreation of Robert Falcon Scott’s push to be the first to plant a flag at the geographical South Pole, but it is so much more.  Philip Quast inhabits the character of the ill-fated expedition leader but his character is layered with a reality more likely to be that he is an older man, wanting to share his adoration for the explorer by convincing four other residents at his nursing home to ‘reenact’ the final march south and their incomplete journey back to base camp at Hut Point.  The character, only ever referred to as Scott, has appointed ‘friends’ to represent Royal Navy Officer Edgar Evans (Peter Carroll), Ornithologist and Natural Historian Edward Adrian Wilson (Vanessa Downing), Army Officer Lawrence Oates (John Gaden) and Royal Indian Marine Henry Robertson Bowers (Brigid Zengeni).  The reenactments of what “Scott” imagines, most likely supported by readings from Robert Falcon Scott’s journal, are played out in an arctic landscape.  “Scott’s” imagination is incredibly vivid though the rest of the party’s reactions could easily relate to the historic character’s reactions to what they were experiencing or the present-day pensioners’ views on what “Scott” has talked them into doing and their own aches and pains of age.  Each individual has their own regrets and dreams, and each reacts differently to the dual situations of being on a fruitless quest for the South Pole and contemplating if they have achieved all they intended to do and what aging is doing to their minds and bodies.

Designer Charles Davis leans into “Scott’s” imagination to have the stage represent the rock and ice of the South Pole, complete with the ability to create a blizzard with the requisite cold required for a cast wearing expedition layers having the effect of having the audience feel a bit closer to the story.  In keeping with the premise that this is a story that gradually reveals its secrets and truth beneath the veneer of retelling Scott’s story, the costuming at face value feels like fairly authentic recreations of the deerskin mittens, hauling harness and oilskins that the Terra Nova’s explorers would have worn, but gradually makes way for the realization that “Scott” has fitted out his oddball troop with contemporary exploration gear of Gore-Tex and other modern materials.  The design and staging of the conversations that take place in deerskin sleeping bags is brilliant in its ability to convey the scene while ensuring that all the performers remain visible. 

In an age when care of the elderly has come into question for the lack of dignity often afforded people consigned to retirement homes and care residences, DO NOT GO GENTLE seeks to reframe the view that once old, people have nothing more to give and nothing more to strive for.  Led by “Scott” the characters all have something more to achieve, often having regrets that they didn’t do something about it earlier.  “Oates” hates that “Scott” keeps calling him ‘soldier’ due to his present reality being linked to a son lost to the aftermath of war so lives with a regret that he didn’t do something sooner.  “Bowers” is losing her memory but wants to share more but can’t. “Wilson” regrets not having taken more control of her life when she was younger so seizes the opportunity now.  “Evans” wishes he been more vocal and expressed himself better.  “Scott” appears to be questioning his own impact on the world as he honors his hero. Outside of the expedition party, Maria (Marilyn Richardson) adds an element that helps anchor the story in the modern day with her memories of being a child refugee and still looking for answers to why she survived and her family died with the only thing connecting her to her long lost relatives being her grandmother's music which allows Richardson to provide some musical interludes to the production.  Alex (Josh McConville) also anchors the characters to their real world as “Bowers’” son whom she no longer recognizes.

While the story of the Terra Nova Expedition and the push for the South Pole is intriguing, personally having had a long interest in the Golden Age of Exploration and the Antarctic explorers, the layering of tragic tale with the reality of what is happening to the minds and bodies of the aging characters makes DO NOT GO GENTLE an even more captivating piece of theatre.  It can be confronting to witness someone give up, someone sacrifice themselves for the sake of the living, and others that refuse to go quietly, fighting till the end for the chance to make one more moment. 

https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2023/do-not-go-gentle