Christmas can be a very happy time with family and friends or it can be a very lonely time when one doesn’t have company around. As the play title suggests, the focus is on two people who are struggling with loneliness at Christmas time.
Robert Anderson’s play is set in the late 1960’s in New England, America. Katherine and John have adjoining rooms in a country motel on Christmas Eve. The play opens with Katherine despondently walking around her room and then sitting down on her sofa with her hands in her face. Things get so tough that she cries out for help. The maid doesn’t hear her but John does. He comes to her door, the door is open, he lets himself in, Katherine comes out of the bathroom wiping away tears, and the play begins in earnest.
The play’s journey sees Katherine and John open up to each other and find solace in each other’s company. They feel each other out a bit like a chess game. John plonks himself down right next to Katherine on the sofa, and Katherine walks away. Then just before interval, John asks Katherine if he can sleep on the sofa, because he can’t stand to be by himself on Christmas Eve. Katherine relents. The moves continue in Act 2.
Jim Searle’s production is in harmony with the old fashioned feel of the play. There is a net period set of Katherine’s motel room with a double bed, sofa, painting, side table and mirror above, a coat stand and a small (make believe) log fire. As well as the main door, there is a door leading off to John’s apartment. The costume design is of the period as is Katherine’s hairstyle care of the Guild’s wig department.
The production features a cast of six. Kai Yan debuts well as Jerry, Katherine’s teenage son who makes an appearance late in the play.
Sue Green gives a polished performance as the motel’s very efficient, good natured maid.
Russell Goodwin and Eloise Tanti impress playing two young honeymooners Philip and Janet who are staying at the motel, whom Katherine and John befriend after running into each other at the local cinema. The couple are already niggling away at each other which doesn’t bode well for their future. Katherine jokes to the couple that she took along to her honeymoon a copy of the novel ‘War and Peace’!
Anderson puts most of his good writing into his two central, conflicted characters.
Peggy Leto gave a subtle, understated performance as Katherine. A quietly spoken, intelligent woman she has had to cope with a husband who is often away for work and has been unfaithful. She describes herself to John as being a square and feels threatened by his availability. Her father gave her an eye of God pendant when she was young and she has always felt as if God is watching everything she is doing, so she’d better be careful. Katherine is a sensitive woman who used to write a lot of poetry.
John, well played by Barry McMaster, is the character that got to me the most. He is a bit of a tortured soul. A writer, he is very articulate and expresses his difficulties to Katherine. His marriage has broken down as a result of some poor behaviour but he isn’t able to let it go and move on. He tells her that without his wife Jennifer he has no past. In fact he is stuck in the past, talking about the happy times he had with his wife going back to their University days together.
John’s way of coping with his situation is to only sleep with women he doesn’t care about. Yet he contradicts himself when he later says,‘there’s something mystical about spending the night together with a woman’. Anderson’s portrait is of a man living in the past right up to the last, poignant scene.
Recommended for theatre lovers who enjoy a good, intelligent, old fashioned romantic drama, SILENT NIGHT LONELY NIGHT is playing the Guild Theatre, Rockdale until 24 November.
guildtheatre.com.au