If you ever wondered what David Williamson would look like transplanted to the Northern Hemisphere, April De Angelis’ Jumpy provides the ghost of an answer.
It’s a portrait of domestic ennui and dissatisfaction in middle-class England that is two parts zinger to one part pathos, ladled on late but thick. De Angelis sure knows how to wring a chuckle from the white theatre-going types whose entanglements she skewers, but talk about low-hanging fruit.
Jane Turner stars as Hilary, whose marriage is neither happy nor particularly toxic, but who is shackled with a teenage daughter who might just be the most cartoonishly horrible millennial I’ve ever seen on stage or screen. Played by Brenna Harding, best known for the new Puberty Blues, Tilly is relentlessly petulant and monstrously entitled. As such she’s yet another Gen Y character who’s not really a character at all, but a collection of clichés that serve to happily flatten an entire generation.
Marina Prior plays Hilary’s best friend, Frances, who goes on holiday with the family and a recently divorced family friend (John Lloyd Fillingham). She treats the group to an extended burlesque routine that leaves their jaws on the floor. She’s getting on but has taken up cabaret – it’s a mid-life crisis, geddit? Meanwhile, Tilly’s sex life is going full-pelt, providing more grist for the endless antagonism between mother and daughter.
The set by Michael Hankin is simple and effective. The tip of a banister and sliding panels suggest space without having to fill it, and without distracting from the performers, who are uniformly terrific. Pamela Rabe as director coaxes a delicate turn from Turner in particular, but that delicacy is at odds with the broadness of De Angelis’ dialogue. The play careers from farce to drama and back again, but the characters are so clown-like or so repellent that feeling anything for them would be a truly Olympian feat of empathy.
2.5/5 stars
Jumpy is playing at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House until Saturday May 16.
