The appeal of Australian playwright Verity Laughton’s absorbing new play ‘The Sweetest Thing’ is vicarious in nature, as we watch the choices that her characters make, and how these choices impact on their lives.
Laughton’s play charts the journey of the twenty two year old Sarah (Diana Glenn), a vivacious young woman who takes a new direction in her life. She begins her odyssey when she can no longer cope with the funk that her family has fallen into after the sudden death of the father in an accident. She leaves her grieving and disapproving family, her mother Elizabeth (Vanessa Downing) and her two sisters, Flicker (Caroline Craig) and Bella (Lucy Wigmore), behind and heads across to New Zealand.
It is there that she falls head over in love for the first time in her life with Jimmy (Christopher Morris) a rough diamond kind of guy who loves a drink. Sarah receives her inheritance from her father’s estate and uses the money to buy Jimmy the boat that he has always dreamed of having, a boat that Jimmy calls, ‘the sweetest thing’. When Sarah goes back to Australia to introduce Jimmy to the family, he receives an icy reception.
Sarah Goodes confidently directs Laughton’s mood piece that plays straight through under ninety minutes. Her creative team effectively creates the world of the play. A bit of decking creates the effect of a summer house in Marissa Dale-Johnson’s set design, Emily Maguire’s celtic music soundscape and cinematographer Bonnie Elliott’s languid summer images work well.
Goodes wins good performances from her cast, who do good work with their well drawn characters; Diana Glenn (‘The Oyster Farmer’) played the naïve, impetuous central character, Sarah, Vanessa Downing (‘Packed To The Rafters’) was the stressed out mother, Elizabeth. Caroline Craig (‘Underbelly’) played Felicity, a promising singer who ended up taking up a career in higher mathematician, Lucy Wigmore (‘Cat and Mouse’) played Bella who saw her main duty as caring for her mother, and Christopher Morris (‘Spring Awakening’) was the wayward Jimmy.
A joint Arts Radar and B Sharp world premiere production Verity Laughton’s ‘The Sweetest Thing’ opened at the Belvoir Street downstairs theatre on Friday 29th October and plays until Sunday 21st November 2010.
Tags- Verity Laughton, ‘The Sweetest Thing’, Belvoir Street theatre, B Sharp, Sarah Goodes, Thomas Conroy, Caroline Craig, Vanessa Downing, Diana Glenn, Chris Morris, Lucy Wigmore.