A hefty chunk of contemporary Australian playwriting can trace its narrative, thematic and structural lineage back to Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Ray Lawler’s play about imploding personal and national ideas of mateship, loyalty and family has been performed more than 1,000 times. It is regularly an assigned literary text in Australian high schools and universities, and it paved the way for a storytelling identity in its image: Australian naturalism, the mundane tragedies of life, the personal and the domestic writ epic. And it all started when the Doll won the prestigious Playwrights’ Advisory Board Competition prize in 1955.
But it didn’t win alone. Lawler’s play actually tied with another one: The Torrents by Oriel Gray. The Doll is a national classic; The Torrents had, until this year, only been performed professionally once: in Adelaide in 1996. We can guess at all the reasons the industry chose to focus on the Doll and ignore The Torrents. Gray was a woman writer, first of all, a working mother in a conservative era and a one-time member of the Communist party. She wrote about racism in country Australia, feminism and environmental concerns – all things the country was collectively trying to ignore. Gray left the theatre for television writing in the end. Game, set and match to the male-dominated stage canon.
That’s why it’s bittersweet and genuinely moving to see Oriel Gray front and centre with director Clare Watson’s long-anticipated staging of The Torrents, a co-production by Sydney Theatre Company and Black Swan State Theatre Company. A neon sign spelling out her name hung over the pre-show curtains and, as the lights went down, comic and actor Celia Pacquola, who stars in the play, appeared in her comedian persona to explain the work’s history and unfairly denied legacy. It’s a smart and welcoming way to usher a decades-old play into the current moment (take a first-time theatregoer; they’ll feel taken care of).
The play is set in the fictional town of Koolgalla in the 1890s, newly rich from gold but also quickly running out of it. The arrival of the new hire at the local newspaper office, JG Milford, is highly anticipated by the staff – until she appears. They had no idea that “J” stands for Jenny (Pacquola). There’s never been a woman in the newsroom before and some of them would prefer to keep it that way.
Rufus Torrent (Tony Cogin), who owns the paper, is furious; his son Ben (Gareth Davies), who stands to inherit it, is delighted. The rest of the staff – intransigent Jock McDonald (Sam Longley), blustery Christy (Geoff Kelso) and adolescent trainee Bernie (Rob Johnson) grow to appreciate Jenny in time. She’s an emotionally mature straight-shooter, and while the men embarrass themselves with their small-mindedness, she issues a call to arms to use the press as a battleground not just for the truth but as a place to help shape a better future.
That future might begin with Kingsley (Luke Carroll), who has a plan to develop irrigation and agriculture in the area. All he wants is his scheme presented in the paper – and maybe the love of Gwynne (Emily Rose Brennan) – but, with big shot John Manson (Steve Rodgers) threatening to pull his investment in the paper if the environment gets any column inches over his gold, it’s a hard slog.
Gray was a longtime leftist and The Torrents, a genuinely funny workplace comedy, is anchored by her politics: Jenny is a progressive who pushes others to think about community and inclusion rather than their own wealth, to find their passions and live their ideals. The play itself is neatly structured with dual storylines that satisfyingly converge to raise the stakes. It’s witty and sharp, and yet still hopeful.
Watson directs The Torrents with a sense of generosity. The show feels propelled by the joy of finally giving Gray her due. In a clever, mostly successful gamble, Gray’s gags are re-mapped on to the beats and timing of contemporary comedy. There’s a healthy dose of physical business and broad line reads from the supporting cast that mostly works (watching someone throw a hat or catch a cane hasn’t been this enjoyable in years). It’s a pleasure to watch the finely tuned chaos play out on Renée Mulder’s realist old-school newsroom set, anchored by bundled newspapers and high windows, through which clear country sunlight appealingly slates, thanks to lighting by Lucy Birkinshaw.
Meanwhile, Jenny is set apart from the slapstick. She exists above it, all calm silence and droll looks; a contained, mesmerising storm. There’s a compassion to Pacquola’s performance that softens the play and allows it to find moments of poignancy.
The ensemble is dotted with strong performances in support, particularly from Longley and Cogin, though some actors are more comfortable with the tenor of Gray’s language than others. Still, the rising tide of the production, kept rolling by Watson, lifts all boats, buoyed by Joe Paradise Lui’s country/folk compositions. It’s consistently thoughtful, always enjoyable.
This production of The Torrents gives us back a play we should never have lost in the first place, nudging it to its rightful place alongside the Doll as a triumph of Australian theatre from our formative years. But with that nudge comes a note of melancholy. What could this play have done for audiences in the 60 years since? It suggests an alternate timeline of Australian playwriting: one in which women’s stories, progressive stories and stories about pushing the country forward fairly exist equally alongside battling family plays and stories about conflicted men.
By shutting the door on an award-winning playwright all those years ago, we shut the door on so many others who could have come after her. Watching The Torrents in 2019, it feels imperative that we grab those stuck doors and yank them open as hard as we can. The more changes we make now, the more changes will come – changes that we, let alone Oriel Gray, could never have dreamed up on our own.