The Sum of Us - 4.5 out of 5 stars
Galleon Theatre Group
TICKETS: http://www.galleon.org.au/html/bookings.html
Australian audiences would best remember this play in its 1994 highly rated film form starring Jack Thompson and a young Russell Crowe. Originally written for the stage by David Stevens, his previous credits include as a co-writer for ‘Breaker Morant’, earning an Oscar nomination. Prior to the film version, The Sum of Us, ran in New York for over 300 performances off-Broadway and won the Outer Critics Circle Award.
Galleon Theatre, under the direction of Lesley Reed, have
presented a highly satisfactory production of this play, the audience engaged
from the opening scene through to the end with emotional warmth and laughter.
The set, placed at floor level before the tiered seating, establishes the
Footscray suburban home of Harry Mitchell played by John Rosen, and his son
Jeff, played by Matthew Chant. The set is well designed, and audiences will
relate to the Australiana design and décor. It is in this familiar space that
the great majority of the action takes place, and the design allows for
efficient entrances and exits, adding a realistic environment as we follow the
plain but not so simple life of the pair.
The First Act of the production has two scenes, and the
first of these establishes the two main characters and their backstory with
admirable pace. Essentially a lengthy discussion and by-play between the father
and son, we learn about their relationship journey to this point in time, the
nuances of their individual characters (Harry a widower and his son gay),
and their common desire to find happiness and love. There is plenty to take in
and both Rosen and Chant move smoothly through the conversational dialogue with
freshness and personal closeness. The care and preciseness from the actors for
their subject matter delivery is exemplary and even very small opening night
dialogue errors were easily dealt with without any resulting break in pace or
storyline. The audience were very much engaged from the start, and the actors
reward having now gained the audience’s attention well and truly for the
remainder of the play.
As the father, Rosen gives a cheeky, irreverent and
emotional performance. While he delivers several of the memorable comedic lines
with great timing and sense of purpose, his delightful teasing of his son and
anyone else that comes into his space is beautifully balanced by the love and
heartfelt emotion he feels for his son. His language is so well presented in
both tone and style audiences will be very familiar with, suburban Australia.
On occasion, performers can overdo the Australian accent to portray ‘Australian’,
but Rosen’s previous extensive theatre experience has ensured he does not fall
into this trap, and he sounds just as you might expect him to be, a suburban
Dad.
Chant, as the son Jeff, is equally impressive in his role.
The audience was taken by how closely the two were connected as a father and
son, and certainly the well written script contributed to this. However, Chant
was also able to mirror many of the father’s individual traits such as the way
they spoke and in their laughs. The physical connection between the two was a
highlight. Where Chant separated from Rosen was the way he portrayed his less
confident self, unlike his father who was consistently cheerful and forward
looking. His facial expressions exhibited his self-doubt perfectly and provided
a very interesting contrast with his father.
The third character in this four-hander, introduced in the
second scene, was Greg, played by Christopher Cordeaux. Cordeaux was most
recently seen as ‘Richard Stanley’ in the 2026 ‘Man Who Came To Dinner’ at the
Arts Theatre. His character is an important one, the gay ‘potential’ partner
for Jeff, in the main for his contrasting back-story. Whereas Jeff has a
supporting parent for his lifestyle choice, this is not the case for Greg. He
also provides a foil for Harry to deliver some of those comedic moments (at his
expense). Cordeaux gives a sensitive and emotional performance as a gay man
more than a little scared of the suburban environment that he must travel
through and balance his persona in. He discovers that his support for this
journey is somewhat different to Jeff’s and the contrasting nature of their
backgrounds (Jeff a footballer and he a gardener) emphasises the feminine side
of his personality versus the more male strong side of Jeff.
As the final character introduced in the Second Act, Julie
Quick plays ‘Joyce’ a divorced woman and love interest for the father Harry.
Quick has an extensive theatre resume appearing with both Adelaide Repertory
and the Adelaide University Theatre Guild, winning several awards including an
Adelaide Critics Circle Individual Award for ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf’.
Quick also recently appeared in ‘The Man Who Came To Dinner’ at the Arts
Theatre. Although the smaller role of the four, Quick is nevertheless important
as she provides the more ‘conservative’ view of the gay themes to give balance
to the overall feel of the play. She also represents, along with Harry, the
themes of loneliness and desire for members of an older generation of suburban
dwellers who find their personal circumstances significantly changed by divorce
from or the death of, a loved one. Quick produces the emotional character for
both sides of these themes, the search for love and relationship, in a clash
with her conservative views on homosexuality.
Beneath the comedy and suburban familiarity in The Sum of
Us lies a clear-eyed examination of love, loneliness, acceptance and the
courage required to be oneself. The cast’s warmth and credibility give David
Stevens’s father-son relationship a lived-in quality, while the production
never loses sight of the play’s central truth—that the desire to be loved and
understood is universal. For audiences seeking theatre that balances laughter
with genuine emotional resonance, this is a rewarding and heartfelt revival.
- David Kilsby
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