On arrival everyone was greeted with a free glass of champagne, delicious canapes and melodious live jazz music from Nicola Milan and Stray Cats.

The Award Night was introduced by Meredith Cook, as her co-presenter Jarrod Buttery was appearing in the first snippet from the plays seen in 2015. There followed some wonderful reminders of why The Old Mill is one of WA’s leading community theatres.

Meredith and Jarrod were in excellent fun form as they called out the names of the winners.

The actors were most pleased to have the daughter of Constance Ord – the leading light in the setting up the theatre group many decades ago – to present the Ord Award.

BEST PRODUCTION Wolf Lullaby (Director Alide Chaney)

BEST DIRECTOR Noel O’Neill (Hail Mary)

BEST ACTOR Phil Barnett (Summer of the 17th Doll)

BEST ACTRESS Anna Head (Summer of the 17th Doll)

BEST SUPPORT ACTOR Tom Rees (The One Day of the Year)

BEST S/ACTRESS Beryl Francis (Jigsaws)

BEST STAGE MANAGER Ruhama Geiger (The One Day of the Year)

BEST SET Wolf Lullaby

BEST COSTUMES Hail Mary

MEMORABLE MILLY Shirley Toohey for an outstanding performance in Summer of the 17th Doll

MEMBER OF THE YEAR Joint – John Woolrych and John Spurling

A few ‘Silly Milly Awards’ were then presented for various theatrical disasters.

A fun night that gave us all a chance to see some of the star scenes of the year.

The two and a half hour performances can be seen at the heritage-listed, Old Mill Theatre on the corner of Mends Street and Mill Point Road, South Perth (opposite the Windsor Hotel and Australia Post). This is the third of the all-Australian plays being presented by the Old Mill Theatre Group to commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli landing in 2015.

The performances are at 8.00 pm on a Thursday Friday and Saturday nights until 20^th June, with a 2.00 pm matinee Sunday 14^th June.

The play is set in Emma’s home in Carlton, Victoria during the summer of 1953. The scene is a typical working class house, clean but basic. There is a table and four chairs centre stage, a twin settee, patio windows with a garden outside and stage right, a staircase leading to the bedrooms (Props Emma Ketley). The walls are the popular post-war colour – dove grey, the floor is mottled linoleum. The set was built and decorated by Trevor Dhu, Tim Prosser, Sarah Christiner, Patrick Whitelaw, and Rex Gray.

Jenny Prosser and Diane Zaikos perfectly captured the era with the button up the front dresses and the floral, semi-flare frocks for the young ones. 

         Olive (Anna Head), who is in her early thirties, still lives at home with her powerful, controlling but loving mother, Emma Leech (Shirley Toohey). The mother is awaiting the annual return of her two lodgers, Barney (Jarrod Buttery) and Roo (Phil Barnett), a couple of rough, but kind, sugarcane cutters who work all winter and return to Melbourne for five months at the end of the harvesting season. They have done this for years; this will be their 17^th summer at Mrs Leech’s house. This year, Barney’s regular girl, Nancy will not be there for him.

       Olive, who can barely contain herself at the thought of seeing Roo again, is sitting on the settee chatting to her haughty, smartly dressed friend, Pearl (Jennifer McGrath). Olive has arranged a blind date for recently widowed Pearl, with larrikin Barney; however, in fear, narrow-minded Pearl is close to backing out. Bubba (Jesse McGinn), the twenty-two year old Woolies shop girl, who has lived next-door all of her life, listens on in wonder.

       When the lads arrive, Roo presents Olive with yet another kewpie doll, confirming his love for her. This year, instead of being flush with money to fritter on his beloved Olive, Roo is broke. To make things worse, he is depressed because another cane cutter, Johnnie Dowd (Patrick Whitelaw), may be after his job.

       This summer is going to be very different to those of the past.

Director, Trevor Dhu, has proved over the years what a most capable and talented director he is; rarely does he tackle something simple such as a comedy, preferring to go for a complex character study or a highly dramatic script.

This Classic is capable of being ‘acceptable’ with very little input from cast or director, but when you see it performed by such a highly skilled, amateur team, their result could be acceptable in any professional theatre.

The story requires the cast to change from being jovial friends, to a situation of harsh tension and tragedy. The cast has to bare the raw souls of their characters, and in today’s climate, it was truly disturbing to see the sexism and domestic violence, along with the extreme depression and tension caused by financial problems only a couple of generations ago. Trevor has guided his exceptional cast to give wonderfully powerful performances. Andy Fraser’s leadership with the confrontational scenes ensured the cast made the audience squirm in their seats. Exceptional performances by Shirley Toohey and Anna Head.

Sadly, the lighting left me a little disappointed and confused. A New Year firework display could have shown more imagination and had better sound effects. Then, when the drama was reaching a climax, the dining room lights suddenly went out, and the actors were picked out by a spotlight. A few sentences later, the lights came swiftly back up. The couple moved across the room, and the lights rapidly dimmed, leaving the actors off their mark for the next spotlight. Once again, the lights shot back on. No subtlety. Sorry, it ruined the crucial flow. A very slow fade in and out might have worked, but the actors must hit their mark accurately, as though in a TV production. I understand that this lighting design has now been modified.

The play finished with no curtain call, an unusual choice to make, but one that seemed to work well, as the traumatic tension of the play could have been extinguished in seconds by a smiling line up.

Gee, the community theatre standard is magnificent this year. Certainly another treasure to seek out. Many congratulations.