Alana’s Score: 4.5 roses
Here are a few things I know to be true after seeing this show:
- 2019 is proving to be a cracking year for Belvoir
- There is no other love quite like that of the familial kind
- Helen Thompson gives me LIFE
Andrew Bovell’s Things I Know to be True is a masterpiece of suburban Aussie life. It will throw you headfirst into your own memories of family and childhood, regardless of whether yours was filled with lots of people or only a few. Bovell’s writing is enduringly universal, beautifully exploring themes we are all familiar with: love, loss, pain, identity, fear, resentment, and more.
The writing is exquisite. Bovell has captured the intricacies of the Price family with an incredible eye for detail. The dialogue is whip-crackingly fast, while the monologues provide an opportunity for more in-depth character exploration. The script moves seamlessly from side-splittingly funny to heartbreakingly poignant, you’ll be left feeling like you’ve been through the ringer (in the best possible way).
Helen Thompson could not have been more perfectly cast as Fran. She hadn’t even said one word before we were laughing. And her stunning comedy skills are out in full force as the brash, gutsy, zero-fucks-given nurse, wife and mother of four. You wouldn’t exactly call Fran tender, but Thompson’s portrayal certainly has a lot of heart underlying a cutthroat exterior. She makes Fran wonderfully real, and she unequivocally buoys the whole cast.
Tony Martin is a steadfast and sweet-hearted father. His portrayal of Bob is warm and charismatic, the perfect match to Thompson’s blunt, explosive Fran. He mollycoddles his daughters where Fran calls them out, and he comes down hard on his sons where his wife appeases them. The different dynamics between parents and children is so fascinatingly explored by both Thompson and Martin.
The younger cast hold their own, but some bigger emotional moments seem forced, and they all seem to hover just outside the truth. This results in a fairly big disconnect, especially during their monologues.
Miranda Daughtry is charming as Rosie, but it felt at times she was playing too juvenile, and Tom Hobbs gives a sensitive performance as Mark, even if his revelation feels rushed. Matt Levett as Ben brings a fantastic energy to the stage, but doesn’t quite connect to his trauma, and Anna Lise Phillips gives Pip a quiet strength, and finds satisfying complexity in her relationship with her mother.
A full year passes in the lives of the Price family, with the seasons simply denoted by the changing of Bob’s four precious rose bushes – a clever design by Stephen Curtis (brought to life by Simon Macgyver), and a not-so-subtle correlation to each of the four children. His set is fully evocative of what you’d see over the fence in suburbia, right down to the achingly familiar cracked green paving and the hardy green plastic furniture.
This production is beautifully directed by Belvoir co-founder Neil Armfield. He has brought to life all of the intricacies found in Bovell’s script, allowing the full force of family life, love, loss and everything in between to come to the fore. Armfield guides his cast with an expert hand, but also allows them space to breathe and live in their characters and the world around them. It’s a tremendous collaboration that is crucial to this production’s success.
The immediate, and prolonged, standing ovation at the end was a testament to the force and power of theatre, and of this production in particular. The audience didn’t want to stop clapping.
I for one saw so much of myself and my family up there, and I was incredibly moved, both to tears and fits of laughter. I know I wasn’t alone.
Playing at Belvoir St Theatre until 21st July. Beg, borrow, steal and sell your firstborn for a ticket.
Alana Kaye – Theatre Now
Photo credit: Heidrun Löhr
The Things I Know To Be True
Andrew Bovell
8 Jun – 21 Jul 2019
Tuesday 6.30pm
Wednesday 6.30pm
Thursday 1pm & 7.30pm
Friday 7.30pm
Saturday 2pm & 7.30pm
Sunday 5pm
Previews
7.30pm, 8 June
6.30pm, 9 June
7.30pm, 11 June
Opening Night (invitation only)
7.30pm, 12 June
Post-show Q&A
25 June, directly following the performance
Thursday Matinee
1pm, 27 June
1pm, 4 July
1pm, 11 July
Unwaged Performance
1pm, 18 July
Belvoir Briefing
6.30pm, 30 May
Venue: Belvoir Theatre: Upstairs
Theatre Company: Belvoir Theatre Company
Duration: N/A
One year in the life of an Australian family.
The Prices aren’t from the top end of town, but they’re not battlers either – Fran and Bob have brought up four children and kept their sense of humour.
It should be time to stop and smell Bob’s precious roses.
But just when things should be slowing down, the complicated lives of all four offspring come crashing through the brick veneer walls.
With plate-dropping family revelations, love pangs, and the sweet pain of finding out the truth, Things I Know To Be True is a beautifully crafted play from the ever-rewarding mind of Andrew Bovell (Lantana, When the Rain Stops Falling, The Secret River).
Neil Armfield is one of our greatest directors. His great theme is family. Andrew Bovell has written a great play about family. Belvoir St is the perfect stage to bring them together. We can’t wait.
“An articulate, poetic and poignant drama about the family circle.” –The Telegraph UK
Supported by the Chair’s Circle
CAST
Miranda Daughtry
Tom Hobbs
Matt Levett
Tony Martin
Anna Lise Phillips
Helen Thomson
TEAM
Set Designer Stephen Curtis
Costume Designer Tess Schofield
Lighting Designer Damien Cooper
Composer Alan John
Sound Designer Steve Francis
Stage Manager Luke McGettigan
Assistant Stage Manager Georgina Pead
Ticket Prices
