Hannie Rayson’s play starts and ends at the funeral of its main male character, Professor Peter George, with his three wives seated behind the casket. Between, 30 years of his life and times are played out as the incorrigible lover of ideas and idealists fights his public battles while losing his private ones.
After introductions are made by family friend, Duffy (Malcolm Walton), the great man himself (Ernie Tinesz) launches into a passionate monologue to set the stage for the next two and a half hours. Or that is what Mr Tinesz was meant to do. However, large chunks of it were somewhat fluffed and that vital zone of connection between audience and actors that is necessary upfront to make a production work was never much formed.
Not that the players of the three females who had been longest in Prof George’s life did not work stupendously to repair the damage. Shona Benson as Beatrix, George’s first wife who gave up a career to be with her man and was then betrayed was joined by Shelley Hampton (as Lindsay, his second wife), a manipulative and bulldozing creature of academia and Miriam Keane as Ana, George’s and Beatrix’s daughter who even at the end of her twenties suffered greatly from her views of parental neglect and sense of inadequacy, and together managed to get things going again.
Each did praise worthy efforts in their respective roles and held the show together.
The problem of an actor losing their lines is an occupational hazard and criticism of such an event ought to be prefaced always by the phrase ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’ But here however, there seemed most ample evidence that Mr Tinesz simply was grossly underprepared, often it seemed reading his lines on the stage itself, and, as a result, the important nuances of his work that would help build his character in the minds of his audience were also lost.
Life After George is also an extra challenge for a director. John Graham does an excellent job of working his stage with minimal resources and props. However, completing some 31 scenes without one’s main memory being that of actors peeling off to the wings was probably beyond the assets at his disposal, especially in the lighting department.
One can only hope that Professor George gets his act together a whole lot better as the season progresses but as mentioned the work of the three ladies referred to is worth the visit.
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