Vere (Faith)

Doyle is known for his worldly, mischievous radio and television character Roy Slaven, and for scripting the highly-regarded small screen mini-series Marking Time and Changi. He made his 2008 playwriting debut with the well-received The Pig Iron People for the Sydney Theatre Company, and has acted in stage productions for both the State Theatre Company of South Australia and Sydney Theatre Company during the 1980’s.

This play begins with Vere (Paul Blackwell), an anachronistically enrobed 62 year-old physics lecturer, lecturing. After, he heads to his office where, incongruously, his specialist visits him, and not the other way around, to tell him that he has a particularly aggressive form of dementia. Before he gets the chance to consider this diagnosis his colleagues and students join him for end-of-year drinks.

At the drinks two other notable Australian Veres are referred to: Labor Party Leader and post-war President of the United Nations General Assembly Herbert Vere ‘Doc’ Evatt, and Vere Gordon Childe, an influential social archaeologist who died suspiciously in the Blue Mountains in 1957. The two real Veres are interesting historical figures but due to the brevity and nature of their roles in this play, their presence, the naming of the central character, and the play, all seem contrived.

Geoff Morrell’s excellent turn as the suave and lecherous Vice-Chancellor, who joins the end-of-year drinks, brings much needed energy to a play that starts sluggishly. This is no surprise; Morrell has successfully portrayed Doyle’s creations before in both Marking Time and Changi. As well as embracing the cadence of Doyle’s language, Morrell’s delivery of deeply complex academic ideas is, in contrast to the other supporting cast members, entirely convincing.

In the second Act, Vere’s advanced dementia, and an uncontrollable bowel movement, complicates a dinner party at which his family is meeting his grandson’s fiancé and her parents. The six supporting cast-members from Act One play the various roles of son, daughter-in-law, grandson, fiancé, and prospective in-laws and when Vere, affected by his illness, confuses them for his colleagues from Act One the audience can, at first, certainly empathise. The fiancé’s father (Morrell), a proselytizing Reverend, believes the increasingly distressed Vere needs God. This enrages Vere’s rationalist son and daughter-in-law and what is best described as an angry, overlong farce ensues, to the play’s detriment. This scene and the office scene earlier suggest that director Sarah Goodes did not entirely master Doyle’s particular combination of intellect and humour.

The Second Act set was particularly awful; a sparse living room with two long walls inexplicably lined with a total of eight plain doors separated by un-utilised dining chairs. It was unattractive and did not demonstrate an apprehensible connection to the play unfolding in and around it.

Paul Blackwell, good in the first Act, excels in the second when portraying the same character when debilitated and confused by his dementia; his ability to deliver, amidst the farce that was occurring around him, the poignant, yet addled, ramblings of a fading intellect was an achievement.

Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5

Vere (Faith)
By John Doyle
A State Theatre Company of South Australia and Sydney Theatre Company co-production
Director: Sarah Goodes
Set Designer: Pip Runciman
Costume Designer: Renee Mulder
Lighting Designer: Nigel Levings
Composer/Sound Designer: Steve Francis