The pitfalls of charity

Issue 

Jerusalem
By Michael Gurr
Directed by Bruce Myles

The Wharf Theatre, Sydney

Review by Brendan Doyle

Jerusalem is a fine play. Unlike a lot of recent Australian theatre, which doesn't stray much beyond middle-class angst at the beach house, Gurr's play is about larger themes of justice, politics and personal values. Satisfying theatrically, it is unsettling on more than one level.

I didn't much like his previous play, Sex Diary of an Infidel, also a Melbourne Playbox production, which I felt tried too hard to impress. Jerusalem works on a larger canvas. It is sombre, funny and always in touch with life in present-day Australia.

The play's title comes from radical and visionary William Blake's poem of the same name, written during the industrial revolution. For Blake, Jerusalem represented a paradise on earth that could be achieved by just social action. In the poem, he asks, "And was Jerusalem builded here/ Amongst these dark satanic mills?". The answer, of course, was no, and Blake swore to fight until Jerusalem was built "in England's green and pleasant land".

The action of the play takes place on a stark, striking set designed by Judith Cobb. The stage is in the shape of a huge flat mahogany cross, the top of which curves up behind the actors. Reminiscent of the wood of a coffin, it gives the action a sombre, almost metaphysical dimension, and creates an interesting tension with the dramatic situations and dialogue, much of which is very down to earth.

The desire to improve the world, and to feel good about doing it, is what motivates Vivien, Jocelyn and Malcolm, members of a Christian group who visit prisoners and talk to them "without judging".

Vivien (Kerry Walker) is a troubled woman who "believed in God for three months 10 years ago", and has since been divorced, become estranged from her unhappy son and lost her optimism. In spite of all this, she has "adopted" Amy (Tammy McCarthy), who killed her two children and has just been released from prison.

Malcolm (Marco Chiappi) plays chess with a convicted rapist-murderer. For both of them, their charitable activity takes a heavy toll.

Interwoven with this story in Gurr's multifaceted play are two other stories. First, that of Cameron (Roger Oakley), Vivien's ex-husband and now Labor MP in a seat that he has made marginal.

Cameron is a disillusioned man who started out wanting to change society, slowly realised what the ALP actually stands for today and now has to be bludgeoned into doing anything useful by his idealistic secretary Maureen (Janet Andrewartha). Maureen convinces him that all he can do is to help needy individuals in the local community, case by case.

Now, to make matters worse, he's to lose preselection to a younger and even more cynical number-cruncher. There are some very funny and convincing moments here. Gurr must have belonged to a local ALP branch!

The third story concerns Nina (also played by Tammy McCarthy), a committed and compassionate young doctor who, while travelling in Egypt with her insecure boyfriend Oliver (Sion Wilton) was raped by an Australian tourist. The play follows the consequences of that event for their life back in Australia.

All the characters, in their own way, want to do good. Gurr's play is about the difficulties, the contradictions, the failures, the self-deception, the injustices in all that. The world he portrays is not fair and does not necessarily reward the just.

There are more questions than answers in Jerusalem, but that too is the function of the best theatre.

Bruce Myles' direction is unfaltering. There is a fine ensemble feel about this production, in which four of the actors play two roles each, with intriguing results. This is a mature play that makes full use of theatre's multiple dimensions and deserves to be widely performed.

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