GULLS – Lieder Theatre

Photo: Peter Oliver Imagery

What if you were locked inside your own mind and unable to communicate effectively with the outside world?

What if you dedicated every spare moment of your life to caring for a loved one who is incapable of adequately looking after themselves?

What if you were either of the above and struggled to find the strength to go on?

The Lieder Theatre production of Robert Hewett’s “Gulls” examines these questions and others in its powerful but intimate production currently showing at the Lieder Theatre.

Given that the majority of stories we encounter focus on the 510 square kilometres of the planet Earth, it’s a welcome pleasure to experience something set inside the 14cm x 16cm x 9cm space of the human brain. We all spend a lot more time inside our mind than living in the external world and stories of our thoughts, our ability to communicate them, of depression and blockages, of misunderstandings and caring are important to tell and, if we’re being honest, the most resonant.

In terms of resonating, if good theatre is meant to move you, make you ask questions and make you feel uncomfortable, then Hewett’s play gets three ticks. Plays, shows and movies have an ability to take us into worlds and situations we haven’t experienced before and leave us better informed or emotionally connected for that brief visit.

But while some of the themes and experiences of this show may be new for some, for many, this show is not about undiscovered countries. Gulls will particularly strike a chord with carers as they experience Frances’ struggle between commitment and dedication and love and caring, and allowing herself to have a life of her own.

The Characters

So I’ve mentioned Frances. Let’s go back a step and introduce all of the characters. This play is a four-hander (plus two gulls… we’ll get to them later) and it benefits from a small cast, allowing plenty of time and space to flesh out the characterisation of each.

Bill (Harrison Treble) is a man with an acquired brain injury caused by a car accident. He is being cared for by his sister, Frances (Cara Robinson) who has had to make significant sacrifices in her life to take on his care.

Sniffing around Frances, to use the vernacular of the time, is Dan (Bradley Souther), a former schoolmate of Bill’s busy trying to fan a waning flame with Frances, while nosey but committed neighbour Molly Dwyer (Jennifer Lamb) is at the family’s beck and call to provide extra care and support for Bill above and beyond the call of duty.

A central story-telling device of the play is that Bill is able to talk to the audience but is limited to grunts and gestures when he tries to communicate to the other characters. As a result we are privy to Bill’s thoughts while his sister, neighbour and Dan are left guessing what is going through Bill’s mind.

This device also helps emphasise the awkwardness and discomfort many experience in communicating with people whose disabilities limit their ability to communicate. Even audience members who aren’t regular carers may, uncomfortably, see themselves in some of the conversations with Bill. They may feel an element of guilt from the overstated and childlike language they’ve used to communicate, or maybe even a smidgeon of shame for times they’ve felt uncomfortable and wished to escape when communicating with someone they can’t understand.

It is a sensitive topic and is sensitively told by a gifted ensemble of actors.

The Cast

Bradley Souter plays Dan as an obnoxious, ostentatious and largely uncaring semi-yob who may also struggle with loyalty and taking responsibility. We are not expected to like or feel sympathy for Dan and, due to Bradley’s emphatic portrayal, we don’t.

Jennifer Lamb delivers a pitch perfect performance as that overbearing too-much-to-say neighbour or acquaintance who is always up in your grill with an opinion and a suggestion about everything. The role of Molly Dwyer is a difficult one, managing the tightrope of being constantly annoying whilst also being constantly generous and giving of her time, and Jennifer walks that line perfectly. Her delivery of iconic Aussie lines rings true without a touch of overstatement or caricature and her forthright insistence in the faces of Bill and Frances builds several of the most dramatic moments of the play.

Cara Robinson is among Goulburn’s most talented actors and I think this is one of her best performances to date. Weaving through compassion, exasperation, tolerance, then intolerance, trying to be focused on Bill then hating herself on the few occasions she allows herself some focus… it’s a lot.

The part offers Cara the chance to showcase an intimate, loving relationship that isn’t at all romantic, and offers her some escalated dramatic moments that caught me inhaling and holding my breath more than once. It’s a performance that honours the roles of so many carers struggling with the same demands and issues and no doubt gives great succour to them that they are not alone.

But the greatest weight of the show, understandably, is carried by Harrison Tremble in the lead role of Bill. His ability to deftly switch between the fourth-wall-breaking soliloquys to the audience, of which there are many, and then back to his locked-in barely-communicative in-play sequences is outstanding. Neither bleeds into the other except for one specific moment where, quite deliberately, while still speaking to the audience he becomes increasingly agitated, shaking and rattling his chair to powerful effect.

Breaking the fourth wall isn’t new to Harrison who used the device to comic effect in the Lieder production of Around the World in 80 Days (in which his comedic chops were a standout), but in this one he plays it straight. He is the conduit to the unknowable thoughts.

But for all the quality of his delivery to the audience, I was especially blown away by his treatment of the in-character pieces where his depiction of brain-injured Bill was not excessive, cartoonish or cheaply overstated but rather was compassionate, sensitive, tortured and realistic. This is an outstanding performance by Harrison.

The Gulls, puppetry on extended struts, are meaningful elements of Bills experience and joy in the world. They were not only cleverly designed (by Blake Selmes) but were operated magnificently by Monet Remington and Finn Mitchell who not only made their movements so realistic that I wish I had a few chips to throw at them, but who were both also absolutely in the moment at all times, with their eyes always on the gulls and never once straying to the audience or their surrounds. That may not seem like a big deal but it made a difference and helped suspend disbelief.

The Production

The use of the gull puppets and many other decisions and aspects of the show are a credit to first time director (and, full disclosure, former colleague of mine) Brian Hill. This show has been, I believe, a passion project for Brian over many years and his job at the helm of this play has surely marked him as a safe bet for future productions.

His stage is one of the simplest I’ve seen at the Lieder and allows for uninterrupted focus on the performances. The items on stage act like a time tunnel to the 70s, the absence of music and, for the most part, off stage sound adds to the intimacy, intensity and focus and his orchestration of the dramatic builds and moments hit at just the right times. Bravo Brian, you should be tremendously proud of what you have achieved here.

Productions are always the sum total of a village of contributors, so without me embarrassing myself by displaying I don’t know what each of them did, congrats to all of the creatives that contributed to this production.

The basis of the story is obviously the script, which overall I really liked, which stands up very well from when it was written in the 80s and which dragged me right in and kicked me in the guts at the end. There’s a little bit of time shifting in the play, but not a lot and it works well in establishing the relationship of Dan and Frances and how Bill and Frances meet Molly. I did have a couple of issues with a couple of points in the script, however none of that is on the Lieder, so I won’t include them here (although I’ll tell you if you ask).

Gulls simultaneously provides a reflection of what some audience members have experienced as well as insight into something they almost certainly haven’t. Many people will have experienced Frances’ predicament of being a carer stretched to, and beyond, their limits. Carer fatigue is all too real. Many more again will have had, or continue to have, encounters and experiences with someone struggling to communicate. Contrastingly, few audience members will have been in Bill’s shoes and this production provides some appreciation of the thoughts and frustration going on behind the eyes of someone who can barely communicate.

That’s something that theatre, at its best, can do well… allow us to walk in someone else’s shoes and experience vicariously something we haven’t experienced for ourselves. While few of us will go through an acquired brain injury, this story allows us, however slightly, to appreciate some of what it might be like and the related issues to those around the sufferer just a little better and maybe think about the experience more sympathetically. 

Brian and the Lieder have chosen bravely to tell such an intimate portrayal of someone stuck inside, whose personality and awareness have changed (even moreso than Bill’s fourth-wall soliloquys might indicate) and whose access to communication has been largely removed… and and how this impacts on the people in his orbit. This is some people’s every day life. It’s a story worth telling and this production tells it very well.

At times, this show is a confronting, emotional and sometimes uncomfortable experience that you’ll be unravelling long after you leave the theatre. At other times it features some great comedic moments that provide relief to the building tension, and which all earnt a warm response at the performance I attended. Overall, the Lieder production of Gulls is a sympathetic depiction of a sensitive topic, bravely performed by a talented ensemble. It is a very engaging and touching piece of theatre that I thoroughly and enthusiastically recommend.

Remaining performances:

• Thursday 29 May 7.30pm
• Friday 30 May 7.30pm
• Saturday 31 May 2pm
• Saturday 31 May 7.30pm

Buy tickets here