The Other Place

The Other Place, 26 January-2 March 2013, Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne. Directed by Nadia Tass.

Catherine plays: Juliana Smithton.

The Other Place. Wow. It is a really great play, I saw this on the opening night (31 January). The playwright, American Sharr White (who interestingly studied to be an actor and was also there watching on opening night!) has done a really terrific job writing this play. It would not have been easy!

52-year-old Juliana Smithton is a successful and expert brain specialist. The audience first meets Juliana as she is holding a conference, talking about her own brain research in front of other doctors (the audience... well, sort of). It was here that Juliana experiences her first 'episode', as she describes it in her narrations and to another doctor. There is a girl in a yellow bikini sitting in the audience, who only Juliana sees and whose significance isn't quite realised early on in the play, then, there are flashbacks from both the past (like the conference) and the present which begin to make sense as the play goes on. There are flashbacks of Juliana on the phone to a man, Richard (David Whitely, who plays one other character) and a woman, Laurel (Heidi Arena, who plays two other characters). Laurel is Juliana and Ian's (David Roberts) daughter, whose fate is slowly revealed, from two different points of view. Juliana believes that Laurel has been in contact with her in recent times, and that she now has two young children and is married to Richard. Ian, on the other hand, does not believe Juliana and his reasons for not believing her are revealed later.

It becomes clear early on that something is not quite right with Juliana, particularly when she admits to psychologist Cindy (Arena), that she thinks she has brain cancer. This frank admission though, is not the only sign that Juliana is unwell. She constantly repeats herself, much to the dismay of Cindy. Juliana's husband Ian, is an oncologist, and arranges for some tests to be done on Juliana's brain. These tests reveal that Juliana doesn't in fact have brain cancer, but rather, dementia.

The Other Place, whilst the main subject of the play is quite harrowing, has some uplifting and funny dialogue, mostly spoken by Juliana. Some of the funniest lines in my opinion come from when Juliana thinks that Cindy and Ian are sleeping together, and in front of the pair, begins to write her own notes about the perceived relationship into Cindy's notepad. I think my favourite scene, however, is when Juliana goes back to 'the other place' to try and find Laurel, and when the now owner of the house (Arena) appears, Juliana gets excited because she thinks it is her daughter. A little later on in the scene, whilst the woman is frantically on the phone to Ian, Juliana starts to go through the woman's brown paper bag, which is full of takeaway food. She ignores the chopsticks and eats it with her hands whilst sitting on the ground, almost looking a little child-like and vulnerable. The woman, perhaps beginning to feel sympathetic towards Juliana by this stage, helps by cleaning her up and feeding her the food. "Open," she says, and when Juliana looks at her blankly with the food still in her mouth, the woman tells her to "chew".

Catherine is magnificent as Juliana, she is such a believable actor and plays the character so well. She is the only person who does not leave the stage in the play's entirety (80 minutes). The other actors are all great in their supporting roles, and everyone's American accents are quite good. I also loved the simplicity of the set, there are very few props on stage which works rather well. If I lived in Melbourne, I would have definitely gone and saw this play again. It was brilliant!

****½