After close to a fifteen-year hiatus, Australian powerhouse Judy Davis makes a triumphant return to the stage in the highly anticipated adaption of Helen Garner’s 2008 acclaimed novel The Spare Room. Eamon Flack, Belvoir St Theatre’s resident Artistic Director, is at the helm, both adapting and directing. His work here proves that Garner’s intimate cast and heartfelt exploration of friendship and grief are ideally suited for the theatre.
The audience was bustling with anticipation on opening night. Just before the stage dipped to black, all came to a collective hush. As the lights came back on, Davis was just sitting there, quietly in a corner. She absolutely commanded the stage before she even uttered her first line.
Davis plays Helen, who has just offered her old Sydney friend, Nicola, played by Elizabeth Alexander, to come and stay with her down in Melbourne. Nicola can stay, as the title implies, in the spare room. There’s a little more to it: Nicola is battling cancer, which we soon find out has reached a terminal state. Helen wants to be there for her friend. It’s the right thing to do. As she quickly finds out, this doesn’t mean it is going to be easy.
Alternating between Helen and a narrator’s position, Davis truly sets the pace for the full three weeks of this stay. With a mere finger point, a knowing glance, or a subtle tilt of her head, Davis even conducts the solo cellist Anthea Cottee, discreetly seated on stage. Steve Francis’ score beautifully immerses us further into the action.
Davis exudes a rare mesmerising quality, and for the next 110 minutes, it is virtually impossible to take our eyes off her. The level of energy she displays, never leaving the stage, is electrifying. From her first changing of Nicola’s sheets – a ritual she will endure repeatedly – Helen’s inner battle rapidly intensifies, her desire to “do the right thing” colliding with her own physical and mental limits.
It’s not just the sleep deprivation creeping in. It is also having to accept Nicola’s choice to place her last cancer-fighting chances in the hands of alternative medicine. Whether it is witnessing the crippling impact of yet another vitamin C infusion. Or seeing her friend convincing herself of the efficacy of ozone tank sessions. Or just staying composed when the treatment briefing needs to involve octopuses tearing rocks apart. The challenge for Helen is close to impossible to face.
Against the buzzing, racing, questioning Helen, Alexander’s calm and collected Nicola is simply superb. Her transition from uncontrollable shakes and sweating fits to her radiant “good morning darling” self is breathtaking to watch. She evolves in her own bubble, intimately convinced that the Theodore Institute will have her in remission in no time.
As the play unfolds, cracks begin to appear in her confidence and determination. The way Alexander handles this slow surfacing of her terrifying fear of dying is an acting marvel to witness.
Mel Page’s ingenious set design seamlessly transforms Helen’s apartment into medical practices, a doctor’s office and the dubious Theodore Institute, all just with a curtain pull and some swift furniture moves. The set is elegantly complemented by Paul Jackson’s lighting design, effortlessly marrying up with Davis’s sharp declarations of each passing day.
The set provides the cast with plenty of room to evolve. Davis is free to dart around, whilst Alexander progresses at her own pace from the bedroom to the living area, with a few medical appointments in between.
As the play’s ensemble, Hannah Waterman, Alan Dukes and Emma Diaz all find ways to shine. Dukes manages to bring nuance to the many different medical specialists he has to portray. There’s even an impromptu but very touching magician impersonation, bringing a small escape from the drama.
Waterman is particularly convincing as Helen’s friend and brought the house down with only one line. There are, perhaps surprisingly for those not familiar with the material, plenty of really funny moments in the play. Diaz also covers multiple characters, but it is as Iris, Nicola’s niece, and her moment when she confides in Helen, that she is the most moving.
Garner’s words, many of them lifted straight from the novel, are the perfect prose for the intensely intimate moments we are invited to witness. The language is raw but genuine. The dialogue is sharp but beautiful. It’s the perfect ammunition for Davis’s unmatched talent for delivering biting sarcasm and poignant tongue-in-cheek retorts.
At no time does The Spare Room try to extract cheap tears from its audience. It is a richly layered and achingly honest portrait of two deeply relatable friends, each grappling with their own monumental struggle. It revels in ambiguity, posing profound and haunting questions that linger as the three-week visit comes to an end.
As the cast steps away, only then does the audience begin to contemplate the full impact of what they’ve just witnessed. And that is what makes this new adaptation a must-see theatrical tour de force.
The Spare Room has extended its season to 18 July at the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills NSW 2010.
Tickets: https://belvoir.com.au/productions/the-spare-room/
Website: https://belvoir.com.au/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/belvoirst/
Photo credits: Brett Boardman
In Conversation: Helen Garner, Eamon Flack and The Spare Room runs on Monday 16 June at 6:30pm. Book here for tickets.
