This fine play can be seen at the heritage-listed Old Mill theatre, on the corner of Mends Street and Mill Point Road in South Perth, opposite the Windsor Hotel and Australia Post. Curtain up at 8.00 pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights until 22^nd October there are matinées at 2.00 pm on 9^th and 16^th October.

Greg Aylmore and Les Hart’s set is quite simple but very effective, too much clutter would have detracted from the dialogue. All of the walls are black. To one side is George’s dining area; with a raised, white front panelled, food preparation space. There is a table and chairs, also in black and white.

On the other side of the stage is Claudia’s flat, with a couple of comfortable, dark suede chairs.

John Woolrych’s fine lighting design is operated by techies, Sarah Christiner and Rex Gray. Be careful not to clip the music between scenes, fade it as carefully as the lighting. Not enough hands? Use your feet.

There were 18 mini Acts, smoothly handled by Stage Manager Maureen Harvie. The incidental music was well selected by Grant Windsor.

        With her laptop on the dining table, thirty-year-old journalist, Claudia (Ruhama Geiger), is taking notes for the cover and promotion of middle-aged author, George’s (Alan Kennedy) latest book.

        George, who still has his youthful charisma and good looks, has done very well out of his writing. However, Claudia’s interviewing technique is a little more invasive and probing than one would normally expect. In fact, could this strikingly attractive, very independent woman be seducing this father figure?

        Soon George is giving his wife, Honor (Maree Grayden) some bad news. After of 32 years of loyal, loving service to her husband, Honor is now redundant. Their 24-year-old daughter, Sophie (Jessica Warriner) is stunned, never having had someone so close announce such traumatic news, she is numb.

        Will Honor remain her husband’s doormat? Will George get his comeuppance?

Joanna Murray-Smith is renowned for not writing stage directions, descriptions of her characters or the story’s timeframe. This can make direction very difficult, however, multi-award winning director and Old Mill Theatre board member, Dale James, has produced another triumph. She has dexterously taken the actors through each vignette, where two of the four characters confront each other. Dale has helped the actors subtly, allow the audience to see their true personae.

The cast have clearly shown their admirable acting talents, as they each in turn, change from a position of power to that of weakness, and vice versa.

This tender, beautifully observed play is a little slow to start, but soon some of the self-righteous comments and acerbic lines, have the audience gasping or bursting out with laughter. I am sure that everyone in the audience will have thought ‘That is just like …. from down the street!’

A punchy little show that all married couples should see – with their partners.

This mischievous play premiered in Australia in 2006, but the last Perth production was in July 2008, by the Black Swan Theatre Company at the Playhouse Theatre.

This wonderful, ‘updated’, adult production by the Harbour Theatre Group can be seen in the attractive, art deco Camelot Theatre within the Mosman Park Memorial Hall, 16 Lochee Street, Mosman Park.

Performances are most nights until the Saturday 14^th March. Curtain up at the slightly earlier time of 7.30 pm, with Sunday matinees on the 8^th and 15^th at 2.00 pm.

The play takes place in Margot’s house, out in the wilds of the countryside.

The set is Margot’s study, with antique desk and chaise longue. The walls have some paintings from her collection by famous artists. There is a French window leading out to the garden. Another quality set from the team of Brian Mahoney, Peter Kirkwood and Tina Barker.

Sarah Christiner, who also stage-manages the show, devised the soundscape. The lighting was designed by Rob Tagliaferri and operated by Alan Morris.

        For thirty years, Margot (Rosalba Jefferys) has been churning out her best-selling, feministic literature that has set principles for the modern woman, but now she is starting to have writer’s block. Her publisher, Theo (Ted Bull), phones constantly asking for her next novel, but Margot has only reached the second page of her writing.

       As the author sits at her laptop staring blankly, a bolshie young student, Molly (Molly Kerr) opens the French windows and starts wandering around the study. When, eventually, Margot notices her, an argument starts about the qualities of her previous publications. As things are getting heated, Margot’s daughter Tess (Emily Lloyd) arrives. She has just had a terrible ride from the station with a weird taxi driver, Frank (Andrew O’Connell).

      As the afternoon progresses, and the tension rises, Tess’s painfully dim, stockbroker husband, Bryan (Patrick Whitelaw) arrives and the whole situation becomes more chaotic.

      With Margot’s publication glitches, Molly’s anger and Tess’s martial problems, will normality ever return?

 The director, Trevor Dhu has several most successful, plays and musicals under his directing wing. His acting and direction is well admired and Trevor is respected for trying novel ideas and new approaches to well-known plays. This play relies upon a subtle, understated approach to work well, and the cast has captured this genre beautifully. In fact, every single member of the cast was outstanding. The rapport was amazing and the use of body language quite hilarious, superb teamwork – best I have seen for a while.

Molly Kerr, who has given us some slide splitting comedy in the past, has just returned to Australia after a few months working in Vancouver. At first glances, the two leads seem poles apart, but as the script develops, their characters meld.

The second Act is hysterical, and the updated version is fresh and filled with Aussie humour. A really fun night at the theatre. Highly recommended.

Joanna is a world respected author, and one of Australia’s most successful writers. Her themes of ‘feminism’ and the ‘suppressed masses by the privileged’, has, at times, brought her writing vitriolic opposition, whilst others have said that she inhabits her characters and is a leader with compassion.

The Garrick Theatre Club presentation can be seen at the Garrick Theatre, 16 Meadow Street, Guildford. The curtain rises on this 90-minute production every Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8.00 until 18^th October. There are Sunday matinees at 2.00 pm.

The setting is an artist’s studio at 5.30 on a Thursday evening. The room is painted in light grey with silver woodwork (naff). Around the walls are tapestries, drapes and paintings. There are piles of artworks of several genres leaning on the walls waiting to be completed. Centre stage is a double bed, to the side a sofa and an artist’s table loaded with paints. Good Bohemian atmosphere.

       A young artist, Isabel (Katrina Murphy), is restoring van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini Portrait’ depicting a young man and his pregnant wife. The front door opens and a man enters, he is William (Gino Cataldo) Isabel’s ex-husband, her love from a relationship that quite simply and inexplicably crumbled.

      William is an internationally famous film star, and is about to fly to Paris to get married for a second time. However, Isabel – still deeply in love with him – has contacted him and asked for 90 minutes of his time before the wedding ceremony, which William has agreed to.

      At great inconvenience to himself, William gives Isabel the 90 minutes she wants. In this time, they go through their life together since meeting, examining the rough with the smooth. They appear to prefer self-reflection rather than truly studying their relationship together.

   Will William, seeing their bonds as unbreakable, cancel the immanent wedding? Alternatively, will he leave his memories behind?

Director Brendan Ellis and his assistant Dale James have selected a wonderful cast for such an emotionally challenging play. Katrina was outstanding; she was alive, vibrant and totally involved with the character that she was playing. She was loving, sexy, caring and at one stage had tear-filled eyes. I heard someone saying that they thought Gino was slow to warm up, but he played a man that had been summoned by his ex-wife to have a meaningful chat. William would have been most apprehensive and defensive. In the script, it is clear that William has not been fully aware of the true depth of Isabel’s love for him. With the flashbacks, both actors changed their demeanour back and forth perfectly. It was in these flashbacks that both actors had tricky monologues, spoken directly to the audience with lowered lighting and just a single spot illuminating them.

Clayton Reichert and Josh Harris’ lighting was warm and soft for the flashbacks and of a cold hue for real life. Most effective. Clayton also designed the sound that was accurately synchronised by Angela Donlan and Brendan Ellis.

I must apologise for the fact that for the first time in five years I had a visual migraine and felt really ill, mid play. When I had my head in my hands, sitting in the front row, the poor actors musty have thought that I was hating every second. Again, sorry.

A tricky play to perform, but very well carried off by the magnificent cast who captured the emotions beautifully.