Witty, compassionate drama

A Voyage Round My Father
By John Mortimer. Directed by Ross McGregor. Canberra Repertory Society. Theatre 3. Until August 14.
Review by Peter Wilkins

Memory plays are beacons of their time, lighting the way to catharsis and reflection. In A Voyage Round My Father, playwright John Mortimer searches for meaning in his uneasy relationship with his blind father. Written in 1971, a decade after his father's death, Mortimer's play commences in 1936, when his father, renowned divorce lawyer, Clifford Mortimer, hit his head on a branch in his beloved Hampstead garden and became blind. In an episodic sequence of short scenes we are led by the young Mortimer, performed with engaging charm and natural presence by Zach Raffan, through key milestones in his life: as a young school student (played with assured promise by Pippin Carroll) a screenwriter, a lawyer and barrister, a married man, a successful playwright and finally at this father's deathbed.

Mortimer's narrative device of introducting himself as both observer and participant in the action offers the audience glimpses, from the son's perspective, of the family dynamic and a child's need for parental approval.

A Voyage Round My Father is the story of the struggle for independent will against the overbearing influence of a sardonic and embittered father, convincingly played with irascible assertiveness and churlish rectitude by John McCarthy. Too blind to see each other's point of view, both men stumble through the lonely darkness of their inability to communicate.

Liz de Totth as Mortimer's mother captures perfectly the powerlessness of the compliant wife, in contrast to Carmen King's forceful performance as the modern woman and the younger Mortimer's strongly independent and outspoken wife.

Mortimer's reflections are layered with ironic quips and satirical jibes, deriding education (a wonderfully eccentric performance of an Edwardian headmaster by Oliver Baudert, supported with comic absurdity by Andy Burton and Roger Beckmann), mocking the vagaries of the law, and jabbing the funny bone of human foible. Through the veil of comedy we see the blanket of contradiction, frustration and confusion.

Director Ross McGregor is a master of theatrical ambience. Mortimer's memories wend their way across Russell Brown's softly sweeping, open stage design of sliding drapes of white fabric, daubed at times with projections of foliage and atmospherically lit by Cynthia Jolley-Roger's mood-enhancing lighting.

Good use is made of the revolve for smooth transition between the scenes, with only the occasional distraction of backstage noise on opening night, and Anna Senior's impeccably detailed costuming paints a perfect portrait of character in period.

McGregor elicits excellent performances from the younger actors and Rep stalwarts alike in a production that consistently blurs the distinction between amateur and professional.

Canberra Rep's A Voyage Round My Father is a beautifully crafted production, stylishly presented with wit, humour and compassion.
Highly recommended.

_{Photo: John McCarthy and Pippin Carroll in A Voyage Round My Father. Photo by Karleen Minney}