Review: Abigail's Party

One of the ironies of Abigail’s Party is that the closest you get to the party is via music wafting in from up the street and a few second-hand accounts. Also, you never get to meet Abigail, though there’s definitely the impression that she’s a rather self-centred, attention-seeking 15-year-old with a penchant for bullying her divorced mother, Susan (Julie Hudspeth).

Another is that — apart from providing a reason for her mother’s introduction and some opportunities to help draw other characters — neither Abigail nor her party are really important to the play, which occurs entirely in the lounge room of Laurence (Brian Meegan) and Beverley (Queenie van de Zandt).

They’ve invited new arrivals, Tony (Ben Ager) and Angela (Tara Morice) over for a few drinks and a chat as a gesture of welcome to the neighbourhood. Longstanding neighbour Susan joins the group because Angela doesn’t want her mother around for the party.

Tony’s obviously unsuccessful foray with Crystal Palace in the English First Division seemingly narrows the setting to London, but Abigail’s Party could just as easily have been set in just about any English, Australian or American city during the 1970s.

Indeed, the Ensemble’s designing team — Graham McLean and Matthew Marshall — have obviously had a ball recreating a classic ‘70s loungeroom, with flock wallpaper, period furniture and artwork, spinning-disc ashtray, globe-shaped cigarette case and, of course, the latest fibre-optic lamp and its rainbow of colours.

English dramatist Mike Leigh has been writing and directing for theatre and television for more than 40 years, often using the banality and hollowness of life in the spreading ’burbs as fodder for his social satires and comedies of manners.

And that’s exactly what he and director Mark Kilmurray deliver in a constant stream from a set of characters that, married or not, could hardly be less compatible with each other.

Queenie van de Zandt is the standout as Beverley, the shallow-as-a-puddle makeup assistant who just can’t help her crassness and becomes thoroughly offensive as the drinks start to take hold. Life’s a party for Beverley and that’s something that Laurence isn’t very good at.

Laurence. Poor Laurence. He’s busting his gut selling real estate, trying to find some meaning in life through literature and classical music — and getting increasingly frustrated with his cardboard-cutout spouse. A cardiac arrest waiting for an opportunity that’s shortly to arrive.

Angela’s a nurse, obviously quite a competent one, but socially insecure and absolutely dominated by a violently tempered husband, though quite capable of finding some confidence after a few drinks.

As for the mono-wordal Tony, the less said the better. He’d like to grab his wife’s throat with one hand and Beverley’s breasts with the other. Or, maybe better still, get among the younger offerings at the party up the road.

Susan really shouldn’t be there at all. She’s a mouse, quite intelligent and thoughtful, but certainly not up to partying on an empty stomach and being force fed alcohol and nicotine while worrying about Abigail and a party that could be getting out of control. We all now what’s going to happen and it ain’t pretty.

And while the rest of it ain’t all that pretty, either, it does provide some meaty, strangely compelling, sometimes Kath-and-Kim-like cringe-inducing and definitely thought-provoking theatre. With a play such as Abigail’s Party there is a fine line between disaster and success, and thanks to the skills and experience of this company, it finishes comfortably on the latter side.

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