Love and Perfect Harmony

‘Love and Perfect Harmony’ is a comedy by Raymond Hopkins, a writer from Oxford in the UK. Raymond generously donates his royalties to the MS Society, and the Endeavour Theatre Company also gives part of their takings. So far Raymond has donated an amazing $40,000.

Endeavour is presenting this play in the Hamersley Community Centre, Belvedere Road, Hamersley on Friday and Saturday nights until the 11^th May. The two and a half hour shows start at 8.00 pm.

The stage has black drapes for the walls, but is well set out as a rehearsal room in a community centre in the South of England.

      The choral society is gathered for another rehearsal, when the nervous and shy conductor, Tim (Ryszard Gorell) makes an announcement. The group have been chosen to represent the area in the international choral competition in Austria.

      Pregnant Odette (Sandy Marwick) is worried whether or not her bump will hang on long enough. As enthusiastic photographer, Cyril (Ken Banks) starts planning his next photo shoot, Beryl (Denise Mignon) arrives with her best friend of 40 years, Edith (Rebecca Morgan). Beryl and Edith started life in a rough area, but Edith has gone up in the world and is now the Mayor’s wife.
      Being in such an exalted position, Edith is most distressed that her innocent daughter, Jenny (Amy McDonnell) is going with Hugh (Russell Lambe) the son of the local drunk, Gavin (Will Marwick). However, being the self-appointed star of the society, Edith is thrilled that she will have a major starring role. Then .... Carrie arrives. Carrie (Ro Gorell) has the voice of an angel and it becomes obvious that Edith is going to have her nose put out of joint.

      Who will sing at the competition and will the group ever be the same again?

Sadly this is a good news / bad news review.

The good: The welcome to this ‘hall’ style theatre is very cordial. The stage is well equipped. The lighting design and operation (Linda Clucas) was very good. The set and props (Angelica Franz) were sufficient and effective for a small production. A good programme.

The actors enunciated well, and a couple of actors were very good.

The sad part:  One of the main actors had to be prompted for 25% of her lines. Another 20% she ad-libbed. This is the greatest amount of prompting I have ever seen – including last minute school plays. This actor has been around for a while, but such a poor performance dragged down the others that were trying hard, often throwing them into disarray. That is not fair to the other cast members.

The direction was almost nil. The actors lined up to exit and enter the stage. With a large cast on stage it is always difficult to have plenty of action, but to have none and the cast almost static in a semicircle for the whole play shows lack of thought and effort. When two people are talking alone, putting two chairs in the centre of the stage isn’t really the answer. Often the cast were lost, floundering and bewildered through lack of guidance.
There were about three music cues in the script. When the conductor bent down to turn off the tape recorder, a cue was missed, he bent down again, the cue was missed again – the music continued – he bent down for a third time and even then the music did not stop quite in time with his action.

The pace was about 20% too long, although the constant fluffs were responsible for most of the poor chemistry and delivery.

The script had plenty of jokes and asides, but the actors really didn’t know how to deliver this style of lines.

I met a couple and their two teenage daughters that were up in Perth for the weekend, and the parents wanted to take their girls to see an ‘age appropriate’ community theatre play. They didn’t know where Hamersley was – neither did I – but made the journey to see it. They quite enjoyed the play, but the girls may have been put off for some time to come.

The worst show that I have seen in two or three years? Possibly.

I found this night truly sad. I could see a very capable group, absolutely filled with enthusiasm and potential, dithering around. Perhaps acting for another theatre group, to find out what quality and standards are expected and return to Endeavour. You have the talent; don’t lose your audience before you find the skills. I will return and hope to find a focused, invigorated group.