Dorothy Porter’s 2002 verse novel, Wild Surmise, tells the story of astrobiologist Alex, her academic husband, Daniel, and their increasingly unhappy marriage. She is obsessed with the idea of finding life on Europa, ‘Jupiter’s smoothest moon’; he is ‘happily ravished by poetry’, but increasingly unhappy with his students’ ‘stilted stories / and pretentious poems’.
Into Alex’s life comes Phoebe, an American astronomer; less ‘an old flame / more an old wound’. As Alex’s passion for Phoebe flares brighter, the two begin a curiously one-sided affair:
‘Alex had long and ruefully
known
that only sensational astrophysical
discoveries
could make Phoebe really tremble…’
Daniel, meanwhile, finds himself having to defend his course on Romantic Poetry to a departmental cost-cutting committee. He also discovers that Alex is having an affair. Betrayed by both wife and employer, next his own body turns traitor: Daniel is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and given only a short time to live:
‘You never know from where
your enemies will spring.
Mine, the deadliest,
came with a razor
from within.’
Jane Montgomery Griffiths’ skilful adaptation of Porter’s precise, lucid and visceral poetry has resulted in a compact and moving theatre production, as elegant as it is engaging. Certain elements of the original verse novel – such as Alex’s descent to the ocean floor in a submersible to witness our own planet’s most alien life – have been excised to speed up the story. Elsewhere poems are intercut, to increase dramatic tension and create a sense of dialogue between the two actors on stage. Save for one or two moments late in the piece, where the energy flags slightly, the result is an original and stirring theatrical work that successfully avoids the usual self-indulgence of plays about unhappy middle-class couples.
As Alex, a woman wracked by guilt and driven by passion and obsession, Griffiths is mesmerising: a compelling stage presence. Humphrey Bower as Daniel is equally fascinating, switching easily between grumpy academic and cuckolded husband. His death, as Daniel leaves behind ‘the company of breathing men’ brought tears to this reviewer’s eyes, as did Griffiths’ pained delivery of the play’s final verses.
Alex and Daniel’s different personalities are subtly but effectively evoked by Anna Tregloan’s stage design, which features a twinned set divided by a glass wall, beautifully encapsulating the way the couple live in the same but different worlds. Jethro Woodward’s composition and sound design is minimal and unintrusive, as is Paul Jackson’s accomplished lighting. Marion Potts directs skilfully, never allowing melodrama to dominate this story of astronomy, infidelity, poetry and cancer.
Wild Surmise is a sterling production which more than does justice to the work and memory of one of Australia’s late, great poets. Highly recommended.
Rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
Wild Surmise
Based on the verse novel by Dorothy Porter
Adapted by Jane Montgomery Griffiths
Directed by Marion Potts
Set & Costume Design: Anna Tregloan
Composition and Sound Design: Jethro Woodward
Lighting Design: Paul Jackson
Assistant Director: Adena Jacobs
Performed by Humphrey Bower & Jane Montgomery Griffiths
Malthouse Theatre, Southbank
9 November – 2 December
