OBSERVER: Honour
Joanna Murray-Smith’s Honour has lost none of its vitality and relevance in the 30 years since its first performance.
The writing is crisp and the examination of love in all its iterations and guises remains timeless.
Murray-Smith does not attribute blame when the 32 year marriage of Honor (Caroline Lee) and George (Peter Houghton) unravels.
The ambitious Claudia (Ella Ferris) has come between the couple leaving their daughter, Sophie (Lucinda Smith), questioning her parents’ love for each other and for her.
Sophie wonders just how forthright she should be and if, in fact, Claudia is an exemplar for contemporary women.
The portrayals are dynamic. Caroline captures a woman unexpectedly deserted. Sophie embodies a young woman divided not just between her parents but between just how exactly a woman should behave given Claudia is merely five years older than her character.
Peter gives the right degree of confusion to a man who is seeking but fails to find himself. And the complexity Ella gives to Claudia speaks to a pathology of a brilliant but troubled individual seeking both love and retribution because of her past.
The sparse set (Jacob Battista, Sophie Woodward) is reminiscent of a photographer’s plain backdrop.
This accentuates the power of the lines for they are unadorned but allows the lighting (Harrie Hogan) to cast shadows and silhouettes.
Sam Strong’s direction keeps the momentum inexorably moving forward and the touches of intimacy cleverly insinuate the changing dynamics between the characters.
To that is added the tonal shifts between anger and reflection where individuals see that there is not one single idea of love but a love that is passion, memory, loss, joy, recriminations, acceptance and sacrifice.
Audiences of all ages will be able to identify and see themselves along the continuum of love that Murray-Smith has provided and even see themselves, how they are or were, in the characterisations the actors have provided.
And if this work is anything to go by, we are in for another unmissable year from Red Stitch.
Performance Season: Until March 16
Venue: Red Stitch Actors Theatre, St Kilda
Bookings: redstitch.net
Review by David McLean
Pictured: Caroline Lee and Peter Houghton in Honour.
Photo: James Reiser

