Prominent Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith’s widely performed 1995 drama, ‘Honour’ raises many perennial questions about the nature of relationships and explores them with more depth and resonance than one will find in many a magazine feature article or popular psychology book.

‘Honour’ charts a marital breakdown. After twenty-two years of happy marriage, Honor (Wendy Hughes) and George (William Zappa) have achieved it all; a successful marriage, a loving daughter Sophie (Yael Stone), and a beautiful home. Then, George throws it all away when he falls in love with Claudia (Paula Arundell) a beautiful, impetuous young journalist.

Honor’s words, in one confrontational scene between her and Claudia, where she begs Claudia, ‘Please don’t make me watch you grow up!’, have a broader significance. In ‘Honour’, the audience watches all four characters painfully grow up on stage, as they see reality bite in a major way, and have to accept that their lives aren’t turning out the way that they would have liked.

This is a strong revival of the play. Lee Lewis’s direction is first class and Michael Scott-Mitchell’s over arching timber panels frame the action well. The cast are a treat, with the actors delivering Murray-Smith’s often scathing lines well, and generating plenty of heat on stage.

The performances are detailed and crystal clear; Arundell’s brash, destructive Claudia, Zappa’s self centred, indulgent George, Hughes’s good natured, subservient Honor, and Stone’s ultra sensitive Sophie.

Highly recommended, the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of ‘Honour’ plays the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House until Saturday 29th May, 2010.

22nd April, 2010