This Kalamunda Dramatic Society’s two and a half hour performance starts at 8.00 pm at the Kalamunda Theatre, Barber Street, Kalamunda – be warned the car park has disappeared, being replaced by a tasteless concrete monolith. This Sandra Sando production can be seen on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings until 5^th December.

The time is early October 1993, the one hundred and eightieth anniversary of Verdi’s birth. The scene is a sitting room / music room in Beecham House, a retirement home set up for elderly, famous musicians and singers by Sir Thomas Beecham.

The carpeted room has pale green and peach walls. With a fine collection of props (Jason Millman), it looks the genuine article. There are posters of famous classical concerts on the walls. The furniture comprises a writing desk and a solid oak sideboard, with several comfortable chairs and a settee. Various musical instruments are lying around.

The apron of the stage represents a paved veranda garden outside the music room’s French doors. Set design Rose Weighell and Jan Taylor.

The lighting design was quite simple, but operated smoothly by Stephen Marr and James Glasson. Julie Hickling and Alexis Marr’s sound design was clever with subtle low-level bird sounds from the auditorium speakers – placing the audience in the garden.

      Three aging members of a world famous operatic quartet have fallen on hard times and, thanks to charity support, now live at Beecham House.

      Despondent baritone, Reg (Kim Taylor) sits fuming at Matron’s (Lesley Broughton) control on his eating habits – especially breakfast. He consoles himself by silently doing a jigsaw. Across the room, dippy but loveable soprano, Cissy (Kerry Goode) – who was a bit of a girl in her time – sits with her eyes closed, listening to her CD player unaware that the wickedly funny larrikin, Wilf (Douglas Sutherland-Bruce) lusts after her body. In fact, the tenor of the group, Wilf hungers after every woman. However, Cissy much prefers lithe young men like Nobby (Jason Millman) the gardener. Wilf seems to receive most affection and attention from Bobby Swanson (Les Marshall), still struggling after 60 years to come out of the closet.

     Cissy returns from a wander around the home, searching for the latest gossip. She has just learnt that there is a new inmate in the house, non-other than the fourth member of their quartet, feisty Jean (Anita Bound). Jean was the contralto star of their group, but she is now a broken and miserable woman.

     Cissy’s surprise news brings mixed feelings to the group, Wilf is happy but Reg is horrified, because Jean was his only wife and love. 50 years later, he still has trouble coping with their breakup. Perhaps if they join in the retirement home’s celebration, by reforming their quartet and singing together, their ‘good old days’ may return.

As the promotional material said, ‘this is a script that could be an inert embarrassment if performed by less accomplished players’, how very true. The script demands, humour, tragedy, sadness, even a little lust – and so the list goes on – but with the magnificent cast breathing life into every second, the play comes alive. You don’t have to be old to appreciate the predicament of the inmates. Lonely and frustrated they fight in their own way with their aging bodies, whilst determined to have fun and attempt to regain their much admired youth.

The director is Terry Hackett, one of WA’s most competent leaders; she has been recognised numerous times in the Finley Awards. Terry has chosen an outstanding cast, whose names also appear frequently in the nomination and winners’ section of the awards.

KADS is a small theatre, around 70 seats, but Terry has employed every inch of the stage and turned the auditorium into ‘a busy garden’, this made the whole action much more exciting. Clever skilling.

Poor Douglas lost a very good friend on the morning of the show, but like the true trouper that he was on the stage, with a performance that was both hilarious and flawless. His heartfelt delivery of the foibles of old age had many audience members nodding sympathetically.

Kerry Goode was given the bubbly, excitable part of Cissy. One minute, as the Alzheimer’s took over, she was hugging her friends on their arrival home, when most had not even left the room; then totally confused, she would fall asleep, drugged, in the chair. Kerry excelled in the last scene.

Anita Bound had a complex part, upset at the quartet’s proposed reunion, whilst optimistically trying in her stubborn way to unite with her ex-husband. Anita had passages of fast moving dialogue, and next she would be struggling with her aging body, trying in her mind to find some logic. A very moving performance, with a superb final act.

Kim Taylor, as the shunned husband, had hilarious, well-timed, wild outbursts – mainly at Matron – and yet still he manged to show his deep love for his long lost wife. In one scene Kim had to give a bold and assured monologue, before crumbling back to his usual withdrawn state.

This stage play seemed far funnier and possibly bawdier than the film, whether the scripts were different or was it the enormous skills of the director and her outstanding cast? The pace, chemistry, comedy delivery and sad passages were all performed with colossal skill.

I suspect there will be even more Finley Award nominations from this production.

‘Political Correction’ (40-minutes), is a clever comedy / thriller, written by mathematician James Forte. James is part of this year’s Black Swan Writers’ development course. The play was directed by Douglas Sutherland-Bruce who was assisted by the playwright, James Forte.

In a comfortable suburban home, live two politically active teenagers; the slightly nervous Colin (Harrison ‘Harry’ MacLennan) and his temptress sister, Sarah (Melissa Scott). Their parents, a chemistry professor and his wife are out for the evening, and so the teenagers have taken the opportunity to invite local politician, Frank Armstrong (Alex Sutton) around to the house under the pretence of arranging a research grant for the father.

What is the true reason for the invitation?

Written satirically in parts like, ‘Yes Prime Minister’, with all of the warped political lies, this very funny play is particularly relevant at the moment. It is a novel idea that has been well constructed. The audience loved the sugar-coated hypocrisy, spontaneously applauding some of the lines that could have come straight from the TV’s evening news. The three actors were all excellent, with Alex convincingly playing a man twice his age.

‘Holly and Ivy’ (40-minutes) is a heart wrenching play written by WAAPA lecturer Noel O’Neill. It is exactly 5 years since I first saw this play at the Rechabites Hall with the same actresses playing Holly and Ivy. This production was directed by ‘the cast’, and what a magnificent job they did.

It is Christmas Eve in a small town in central Scotland (Broxburn?). Ivy (Sandra Sando) is making a cup of tea for heryounger sister, Holly (Catriona M. Coe) who has just arrived at the family home for the funeral of their mother.

Ivy is grieving deeply and is somewhat annoyed by the ‘couldn’t care’ attitude of her sister. An argument starts as the sibling rivalry reignites. Both women have a lot to get off their chest, and they are not going to hold back. However, Tommy (Ray Egan) an old friend of their Mum arrives, intoxicated as ever, and cramps their belligerent style.

Can the family ever be the same again?

This poignant play has won many richly deserved awards since its first production. It is a real tear-jerker. The two sisters captured their parts perfectly, and with such a wonderfully true to life script, the whole story was a delight. We all know families just like this one. Ray was impressive with his Scottish accent matching the two girls perfectly. A memorable play, beautifully presented.

‘La Divina Speaks’ (35-minutes) is the life story of Maria Callas, brought to life on the page by award winning writer Douglas Sutherland-Bruce and Elisa Wilson. Douglas then went on to direct this piece.

It is 1972 and we join Maria Callas (Elisa Wilson) as she finishes a passion filled passage from Puccini’s ‘Tosca’. Dressed in a stunning peacock blue satin dress, and dripping with jewels, she takes her bow.

We then join her after the show at her home in Long Island, where Maria tells us of her youth. How as a dowdy, fat, pimply girl with thick myopic glasses she had to perform for her parents in Greece. Then the war arrived and the family was split up.

Her fascinating, and at times, gripping tale takes us through her love affairs and family dramas. She ‘knew’ (in the Biblical sense) many famous people of the era, from soldiers to the extremely rich.

I don’t need to say that the tremendous delivery by WAAPA graduate and International opera soprano, Elisa Wilson, was jaw dropping. Not surprisingly, Elisa was a winner of a prestigious Armstrong-Martin Opera Scholarship. Delivering an emotional song from an opera with such
skill and tenderness is a challenge beyond most performers, but to then do a half hour monologue which entranced the audience and had them hanging onto every word of the story, is another difficult art in itself.

The back stage team of Marjorie DeCaux (costumes), sound (Greg Rusha), lighting (Michael Hart, Hayley Dewort and David Bain) excelled.

How often do we see trilogies when one play will be good, one average and the third diabolical? Here we have three superbly written plays, well directed and top notch acting. A really special night at the theatre.