Prolific Australian playwright Lally Katz’s RETURN TO EARTH at Kings Cross’s Stables Theatre is well worth catching.

Katz gives us an engrossing journey to engage with. We get behind and root for Alice, a young woman struggling with an unspecified, debilitating  mental illness. At the height of her illness, she went AWOL for years, abandoning family and friends, disappearing into a kind of nightmare land. The play starts at the point where Alice has come home, desperate to get her life together again, and facing the challenges involved in  reconnecting with everybody again.

Paige Rattray’s Sydney premiere production serves Katz’s play well. Her creative team- set designer David Fleischer, Composer Tom Hogan, lighting man Ross Graham and costume designer Emma Kingsbury- provide a good foundation for the cast to work with.

Rattray’s decision, along with Fleischer, to keep the tiny Stables stage bare for the actors to work freely on worked well, with actors bringing in props at the start of some scenes and then taking them away at the scene’s close when needed.

The seven strong cast inhabited their characters well, and give convincing performances.

Shari Sebbens, one of the recent stars of the hit film THE SAPPHIRES gives an inspired, memorable performance as Alice. With her fine acting, we feel every bit of her characters’ painstaking albeit rewarding journey.

Wendy Strehlow and Lawrence Coy play her caring parents Wendy and Cleveland who remain committed to their daughter in spite of her erratic behaviour which often pushes them to their limits.

Ben Barber plays Alice’s cheery but demanding brother, Tom. In one of the performances of the night, Scarlett Waters plays Tom’s very cute, impish young daughter Catta, and she displays a lovely singing voice, with her touching rendition of the classic pop song, ‘Eternal Flame’.

Catherine Terracini impressed as Alice’s close girlfriend Jeanie who was hurt by her sudden disappearance, and whilst being friendly is more than a little reserved.

Yure Covich is Alice’s love interest, Theo, a local mechanic who is beguiled by Alice’s quirkiness. Mark Langham plays the straight-laced local Doctor who gets caught up in Alice’s dramas.

Tender, at times funny, and always authentic, Arthur and Griffin Independent’s production of Lally Katz’s RETURN TO EARTH opened at the Stables Theatre, 10 Nimrod Street, Kings Cross on Friday September 6 and runs until Saturday September 28, 2013.