Just peachy

Celia (Anne Looby) owns a peach farm. Her daughter Zoe (Maeve Dermody) helps her run it, as does her neighbour Dorothy (Maggie Blinco). When Dorothy’s son, Joe (John Adam), arrives with two troubled teens who need work, Celia is reluctant agrees to take them on board. It’s harvest time and the trees are pregnant with fruit. Sheena (Alice Parkinson) is a world weary survivor who sees things through jaundiced eyes. Kieran (Scott Timmins), Sheena’s half brother, is a good hearted, but simple-minded guy. When Kieran and Zoe meet, it’s instant fireworks. But Kieran has a past. For Celia, who fled Sydney with baby Zoe when her husband was killed in a robbery, Kieran is everything she’s been trying to protect her daughter from; the past come to haunt her. But Zoe is young and in love, impetuous and rebellious. When Joe discovers Kieran is wanted by the police, Celia is driven to precipitous action, triggering a tragic series of events.

Peach Season is a story of love and loss explored in the context of family dynamics. A mother’s first instinct is to protect her children. It’s only natural. But when Celia makes decisions in relation to protecting Zoe which put Celia’s need to protect herself from the emotional impact of Zoe’s future mistakes instead of what’s best for Zoe, that’s when things go peach shaped.

Oswald explores the maternal heart of darkness, the dark side of the mother/daughter bond, with very sure hands, as if she’s travelled those very same roads herself. The play has a very true emotional core. The characters are clearly drawn and the play is driven by their dilemmas and decisions. There are no self-limiting stereotypes in this play. There is no right and wrong either. It’s not about good versus bad. It’s about people making the best decisions they can based on who they are, which makes the play totally character driven and totally compelling as a result.

What a cast. One of the strongest ensemble casts ever assembled in the intimate confines of The Stables Theatre. No small achievement, when you consider that Parkins and Timmins both make their professional debuts in this play. For first timers they are astoundingly good. Faultless performances, powerfully and deftly delivered. A most assured debut by both actors.

Looby gives a heart wrenching performance as Celia, the over-protective mother. She inhabits her character so completely, she’s a real pleasure to watch. Dermody’s performance as Zoe is just stunning. Totally convincing and engrossing. Dermody is one talented actor. She’s one to watch out for in future. An absolutely stellar performance.

Blinco’s Dorothy narrates the play at various stages. She has some of the juiciest lines and most of the humour of the play works through her. It’s a role to be relished and she makes a meal of it. Dorothy is also a widow. Her son Joe is grown up and having marriage problems. Every family in this play is fractured and dysfunctional in some way. Dorothy deals with her situation and Joe’s with humour, lots of vodka and outrageously tactless and bitingly witty observances about her son’s situation, much to his chagrin. But she leaves him to find his way. Celia cannot do the same for Zoe. It is this inability to let Zoe make her own mistakes that sets her and her mother on the path to disaster.

The question is – Can Celia learn from her mistakes? Can she learn to trust Zoe enough to let her go, let her find her way in the world? Will Zoe survive her choices long enough to learn the lessons she needs to learn to become an adult? These are the sorts of questions that keep mother’s sleepless at night. The kinds of questions which children don’t give a second thought, until something drastic happens to make them stop and think.

This is the debut of Peach Season, an original Australian play, set in Australia, about Australians. It’s refreshing to see such competent and compelling original Australian works, especially considering the amount of imports currently on offer in Sydney theatres.

Philippa Wherrett

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Peach Season

Company: Griffin Theatre Company,
Venues: SBW Stables Theatre, Kings Cross
Dates: to 22 April, 2006