Above: Sian (Laura Stead) and Revlon (Niamh McKervey). Pic Dan Ferris
The cast with director Jennifer Willison
The current play at the Hunters Hill Theatre is British playwright Neil Anthony Docking’s drama THE REVLON GIRL which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017.
This very poignant and darkly humorous play was based on tragic real life events. Back in 1966 in Aberfan Wales, a terrible disaster took place. A colliery spoil tip collapsed, engulfing a primary school and killing 144 people, including 116 children.
This is the fictional dramatic situation that Docking presents us with. It is eight months after the disaster. Every week a group of bereaved mothers meet in a room above a local hotel to support each other as they continue to drown in their grief. Then Sian from the group comes up with the idea of inviting a woman from Revlon to come and talk to the group and give them some beauty tips. Maybe it will be just what’s needed to let some sunshine break through the clouds?!
I enjoyed Jennifer Willison’s clear direction. Neil Anthony Docking characters were very well drawn, and the cast portrayed them well.
Laura Stead is good as the cheery, optomistic Sian. Sian has an investment in the Revlon visit going well, being its instigator, and patiently tries to get her friends to turn their reluctance around.
Kate Kelly plays Marilyn. We know her character from the very start as she comes on stage, looking bedraggled, head a bit bowed, and dressed very blandly. She is not for Revlon coming, For her, it is not being respectful, and she wants to continue with the way that the support group has been going, that it continue as the quiet mourning space that they have cultivated.
I am sure that everyone has met a woman like Rona. Rona is a rough and ready, foul mouthed woman who has no problem with venting. The other women cannot stand her profligate swearing, her rudeness offends them.
Annalie Hamilton plays Jean, the practical, good natured Jean who strives to be the peacemaker within the group, not the easiest of tasks.
The playwright simply, uncomplicatedly, called the Revlon woman, Revlon. Niamh McKervey plays the part well. At first she, quite rightfully, feels ambushed. Sian had not told her that her brief was to demonstrate cosmetics to a group of grieving mothers.
Stil, once she has gotten over this, she manages to start getting the women onside, opening about her own personal trials that she has been able to overcome.
Willison’s creative team each do good work; lighting designer and video prooucer Wayne Chee, slides were projected portraying photos of people from the original mining disaster, costumes by JAS Enterprises, and sound and finely detailed set design by Casey Moon-Watton of the room above a local pub in Aberfan with a portrait of the Queen featured prominently on the back wall.
Moon-Watton’s set was of the room above the X pub. It was well laid out. Very noticeably, and deliberately, there was a portrait of the Queen on the back wall.
THE REVLON GIRL is well worth a visit. I felt that the premise of a small, tight, group of women wanting to feel a bit of beauty again in their lives after the ugliness that life has thrown at them, convincing and compelling.
Neil Anthony Docking’s THE REVLON GIRL, directed by Jennifer Willison, opened at the Hunters Hill Theatre in Club Ryde on Friday 30th May and is playing until the 22nd June 2025. Performances Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
http://www.huntershilltheatre.com.au
