It’s good to see a local community theatre group put on WHEN DAD MARRIED FURY, one of David Williamson’s strongest later works. The Guild Theatre chose this play as part of its 50th year program, quite some milestone.
When corporate high flyer and father Alan marries Fury his family are far from pleased. Alan had only recently lost his wife, and in the time that most men would be grieving, Alan had gone off and married the brash and much younger Fury, a former beauty queen. His two sons, Ian and Ben, were expecting better form from their father.
Ben’s wife, Laura, was also livid with Alan for the way that he had broken her mother Judy’s heart. At the time of the global financial crisis Alan’s company crashed on the stockmarket. Whilst Alan transferred his money from stocks to cash before the big crash, Judy’s husband had invested, with Alan’s encouragement, all his hard earned savings in the company’s shares. He lost all his security, and went on to take his own life.
It is fair call to say that there’s more acrimony than love in the air when Alan flies into Sydney from the States and the family gather together to celebrate his 70th birthday.
Quite the set-up! A lot of venting takes place and plenty of sparks fly before this particular Williamson journey reaches its final resting point.
The strength of this play is that there is plenty for the audience to engage with and relate to. Who hasn’t heard about families squabbling over prospective inheritances? The ‘grief’ felt by many people at the hands of the Global Financial Crisis and ruthless business practice is still fresh in many people’s minds.
I saw the Guild’s production, directed by Chris Searle on opening night, and the performance was marred by one of the cast having terrible problems with his lines, Hopefully this was simply a case of bad opening night nerves.
It’s a motley crew of characters that Williamson gives us, and the cast do their best to make them come to life.
Donny Muntz and Maria Micallef play Alan and Fury, strange bedfellows indeed with Alan being a bit of a business scoundrel and Fury being a conservative woman with high Christian morals.
David Hines and Yolande Regueira play Alan’s older, more responsible and assertive businessman son Ian and lawyer wife Sue.
Darren McDowell and Clare Tamas play Alan’s more compassionate, softer edged son, Ben and his wife, Laura.
Tamas does well in the part that has the greatest range, of the embittered, aggrieved daughter in law.
Beryl Ayers confidently takes on the role of Laura’s mum, Judy, a less appealing part with its rather melodramatic tone.
Jim Searle’s set transverses the plays’ numerous settings ranging from a modest western suburbs flat to a boutique hotel suite to an airport lounge even to the grounds of a crematorium. The no frills design does include, at times, a screen projected onto the back wall displaying a harbour, Opera House setting.
The production’s soundscape lays on the play’s central theme- the obsession with money and status, with a bit of a trowel with the constant refrain of that famous song from Cabaret, sung so cuttingly by Joel Gray, ‘Money makes the world go round.’
The Guild Theatre’s revival of David Williamson’s WHEN DAD MARRIED FURY opened at the Guild Theatre Rockdale on Friday 6th May and closes on Saturday 4th June.
http://www.guildtheatre.com.au/