Some roads that people walk down in life, whilst they are taken with true grit and authenticity, can also cause much angst and grief, not only for the individual but also for the people around them.
Sally, the protagonist in Australian playwright Shelley Wall’s new play INTO THE MIRROR is an attractive middle aged woman who has never been comfortable in the skin of her own sex. She has made the hard, huge decision to change her gender which she is in the final stages of doing so. Sally now goes by the name of Kendall.
INTO THE MIRROR starts at the time when Sally’s grown up daughter Melissa, a pop singer, returns unannounced from Britain after eighteen months away. She hasn’t accepted her mother’s life change, and open hostilities break out between them. Kendall’s long time friend and housemate, Sophia, whom Melissa has always called her Auntie, walks in and tries to restore peace.
We follow Kendall’s journey as she strives to stake out her new life for herself, however the central concern and focus of Wall’s play remains the fractured mother/daughter relationship and whether it can be repaired and renewed. The play brings out issues around acceptance, tolerance and most of all the notion of unconditional love, an ideal that few of us are able to live up to.
What rich, fertile and heartfelt material for drama! Regrettably, Wall’s play, as it stands, does not do this subject justice. INSIDE THE MIRROR feels like an early draft. Hopefully the playwright, seeing the play in full production, will see the work that she still has to carry out before her vision can be better realised.
Presently, there are way too many flaws… Not for one moment does the audience believe that Kendall is a man, how can we then believe that Tyler, a sophisticated woman whom she flirts with in a park setting, would fall for her as a man?!
The play feels so soap operatic and overcooked….it seems like every character has some major issue… been interfered with, had abortions, given up children for adoption…become demented…
The characters, at the moment, don’t have individual nuances and are too much the playwright’s mouthpiece.
The most positive feature of the play was that Wall displayed a good ear for witty, incisive dialogue, and the playwright also conjured up some good moments of humour out of such tough material.
Wall directed the play herself, perhaps not such a wise decision, with the cast- Penny Day, Helen Stuart, Amber Robinson , Carole Sharkey-Waters and Katie Lees- gave admirable performances.
A Damshel Production in association with Emu productions, Shelly Wall’s INTO THE MIRROR opened at the King Street Theatre, 644 King Street (entrance corner Bray Street) Newtown on Thursday 22nd November and runs until Saturday December 15, 2012.
(c) David Kary
28th November, 2012
Tags: Sydney Theatre Reviews- INTO THE MIRROR, Shelley Wall, Damshell Production, King Street Theatre, Penny Day, Helen Stuart, Amber Robinson, Carole Sharkey-Waters, Katie Lees, Emu Productions, Sydney Arts Guide, David Kary