Review: The Ruby Sunrise

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Above: Jonathan Prestcott, Hollie Andrew, Paul Gleeson, Amanda Muggleton.

Above right: Catherine McGraffin, Paul Gleeson, Glenn Hazeldine.

Photo credit for all images: Steve Lunam.

HollieAndrew, Amanda Muggleton, Jonathan Prestcott.

Amanda Muggleton and Marilda Ridgeway.

POSTED: 18 OCTOBER 2009

The Ruby Sunrise, by Rinne Groff

(Ensemble Theatre | Kirribilli, Sydney | Until 14 October)

Most people couldn’t say they’ve seen 100 plays. That would take a great deal of time, money, and a love of and commitment to theatre.

That Sandra Bates, director of The Ruby Sunrise, can now claim 100 plays as director at Ensemble Theatre catapults this remarkable woman into an exclusive and very special sphere. Especially when one considers that she didn’t even begin with Ensemble until her early 30s.

It is very appropriate that as her hundredth production, Sandra Bates chose to direct The Ruby Sunrise, dealing as it does with clever and dedicated women striving to achieve their dreams.

On paper, the premise for The Ruby Sunrise sounds pretty strange. But it works.

Part One begins in 1927, with Ruby (superb young talent Matilda Ridgway) holed up in her Aunt Lois’s barn to avoid her father and focus on inventing the photo-cathode tube. Lois (the brilliant Amanda Muggleton), an embittered alcoholic, was in love with Ruby’s father but her sister won the prize. Not that it seems he was much of a catch.

Lois begrudgingly tolerates Ruby’s presence, but clean-cut college boy and boarder Henry (Jonathan Prescott) is fascinated by this beautiful and passionate young woman with her talk of ‘tele-vision’.

There are some lovely ironic references as Ruby soliloquises on how television will change the world. It will mean an end to war. After all, how could conflict persist once you’ve seen the face of your foe? Who would invite war into their living room?

Ruby struggles in a race against time to perfect the photo-cathode. As her desperation and drive build, disaster strikes.

Parts Two and Three switch to a New York television studio in 1952. Ruby’s daughter Lulu (Catherine McGraffin) is an idealistic script editor with a dream of her own. In the era of live-to-air tele-drama, Lulu wants to tell her mother’s story. Her boss (Paul Gleeson) sees the merit, but has to work within the boundaries of McCarthyist paranoia and keeping the soap-company sponsor happy.

Lulu believes screenwriter Tad Rose (Glenn Hazeldine) can bring her mother’s story to life. But as Ruby’s life becomes sanitised and edited, Lulu’s burgeoning relationship with Tad becomes threatened. How can Lulu feel she has done her mother justice when the finished product is as distorted as an old RCA with a dodgy vertical hold?

There are some charmingly humourous moments, especially as the tele-drama is rehearsed, with the gorgeously ditzy Suzie (Hollie Andrew) in the role of Ruby. Muggleton and Prescott double up as actors playing the parts of Lois and Henry (are you still following this?) and give wonderful turns as slightly precious artistes.

The cast is universally excellent, but special mention must go to the women. They exemplify not only the inner strength and complexities of their characters, but also the depth of female talent in Australian theatre.

Excellent use has been made of the limited space of The Ensemble, with Claire Moloney’s two-level set and speedy scene changes keeping the action flowing.

Playwright Rinne Groff has managed to draw the threads of this tale together with the universality of her themes. As Ruby explains the physics of her invention to Henry, she talks of “persistence of vision”, the physical phenomena in which the retina retains an afterimage for fractions of a second.

Just as this persistence of vision is needed to make sense of the images sent through the air for a television picture, so it is needed to pursue one’s dreams. Ruby knew that. So did Lulu. And so does Sandra Bates. Congratulations.

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