That most iconic symbol of Australian domesticity, the Hills hoist, takes centre stage of Griffin’s 21st anniversary production of THE BOYS

A totem of the Australian dream, the hoist spins hysterically at the play’s beginning, an eerie harbinger of the Australian nightmare we are about to experience.

The backyard setting, another symbol of Australian aspiration, is a barren, brown grass affair … desolate, dusty, dead, a far cry from the aspirational Victa mower manicured lush green turf of the Aussie half acre.

Its perimeters are bordered by tin, a brilliant design choice both visually and aurally, as characters and beer cans bang and scrape and bounce off the surface, adding to the visceral menace and terror of the piece. In the intimacy of the Stables it is intimidating.

Sam Strong is the director of this show, which is a strong production in every facet. Renee Mulder’s design, complimented by Verity Hampson’s lamp work, gives the performers a perfect playpen to present this potent examination of malevolence.

This play, written by Gordon Graham, has deservedly become a bona fide classic of the Australian theatre.

The boys of the title, the Sprague siblings, are each splendidly played. Josh McConville as eldest brother and jailbird, Brett, is a seething mass of pit-bull mentality, harbouring an intense malaise of emasculation, his social dysfunction manifesting in erectile failure, the cause of which, of course, is all his slag shag, Michelle’s, fault.

Johnny Carr as middle brother Glenn is torn between being hemmed in at home and being hen pecked by his upwardly mobile girlfriend, Jackie. He subconsciously understands his relationship with her is healthier than his home life, but is beholden by blood ties and the frightful fraternity Brett expects and exacts.

As the baby brother Stevie, Anthony Gee is frighteningly infantile, with tantrum turns tantamount to homicidal rage, a necklace medallion moodily sucked like some adult dummy that seems to agitate rather than pacify. When not sucking on his jewellery, he’s sucking on a tinnie like his booze-fuelled frères.

THE BOYS could just as poignantly been titled ‘The Girls’, in that the story is as much about the females in these fellows’ lives as about themselves.

Pivotal is their mother, Sandra, played with iceberg precision by Jeanette Cronin. Rising from the sea of misogyny, she seems to subscribe to some sorority with her sons’ girlfriends, but there’s a submerged glacier of maternal single-mindedness that absolves the fruit of her womb of any abrogation of responsibility and consequent abhorrent behaviour.

As Brett’s tarty squeeze, Michelle, Cheree Cassidy is suitably hard–edged, a fabulous foil to the level-headed Jackie, a catalyst for the inner conflicts of the Sprague brethren, given fine shadings by Louisa Mignone.

Eryn Jean Norville is heartbreaking as the hapless Nola, incubator of Stevie’s indiscriminate seed, who sees instinctively that she and her baby are part of a continuum of dystopia. Hardly more than a baby herself, a baby doll defiled, she has a distressing insight at the end of the play – ‘but all this evil, all this violence and hatred, they think they’re using it. But it’s using them!”

Director Sam Strong has stated that THE BOYS in the theatre is not something you describe. It is something you feel. Affirmed most emphatically by this production.

THE BOYS plays the Stables theatre, Kings Cross until Saturday March 3, 2012.

© Richard Cotter

13th January, 2012

Tags: SYDNEY THEATRE REVIEWS- THE BOYS, SYDNEY PLAY OF THE WEEK, SYDNEY FESTIVAL 2012, GORDON GRAHAM, RENEE MULDER, VERITY HAMPSON, JOSH MCCONVILLE, JOHNNY CARR, ANTHONY GEE, JEANETTE CRONIN, CHEREE CASSIDY, LOUISE MIGNONE, ERYN JEAN NORVILLE, RICHARD COTTER, BRETT BOARDMAN, RICHARD COTTER.