I had expected to go through my list of 100 Great Plays chronologically. There’s some sense to that. The journey would, to some degree, graph the cultural changes in society as it progressed ... discover new techniques and approaches as they are initiated … follow a structure.
BUT… a friend of mine linked me up with the “Australian Plays Transform” website where you can find a bunch of great Aussie Plays. And you can get a free one week trial, and I clicked that button, so here’s me being a cheap skate and trying to squeeze a few plays into that period.
I have to say, I’m VERY glad I watched this play. Quite deliberately, I have ostensibly chosen plays that are new to me which is kind of the point of this as a self-educational process. But as it turned out, “THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE” By Andrew Bovell was exactly what I needed at just the right time. And maybe I’ll return to a chronological order, and maybe I won’t, but seeing this in this order worked for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it followed on from my previous perusal, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, stylistically as a great example of realism and naturalism (at least in terms of the script and the dialog, presentation can be another thing). And secondly it was a timely reminder to me of a trait I appear to have whereby I can be blown away by something new to me and feel at the time it’s one of the best damn things I’ve seen, only to re-encounter something I’ve seen before and remember how great it was and how big the feels I got from it.
And I REALLY like this trait. It’s kind of the opposite of the junkie-level high-chasing experience I have with movies, where I am forever chasing the hits I got from seminal movie experiences like Star Wars (back before it had episode numbers), spending a lifetime wanting to experience those early experiences of wonder and amazement and just being blown away.
But it seems in theatre I am FREQUENTLY blown away (a by-product of a continued run of great plays and sensational performances that have been equal to the scripts) and often walk away thinking that’s one of the best things I’ve seen. Even if it involves a temporary sense of “no, THIS is the best”, I think I’d rather retain this reaction to always waiting in vain to be blown away again.
To the play
Which brings me to “Things I know to be true,” and the particular emotional attachment I have to it.
I saw this play on 24 August 2022 at the Goulburn Performing Arts Theatre performed by the erstwhile Bladwell Productions troupe, that formed specifically to do this show as a one off, only (to Goulburn’s great fortune) continue for six more plays).
It was the first full length local dramatic (non-musical) production to be staged at GPAC and was all very exciting. It featured several actors I knew a little, and I was especially enthused for my mate Anthony Lewis to have a crack in a non-musical role, having observed his substantial acting chops in that other format for a while.
It was a new show to me (and having experienced very little theatre many shows are) and I had no pre-conceived ideas - and it knocked me over. So emotional, such committed performances… but the words!!! I had thought about cutting pasting samples of dialog here but there’s just so much quality stuff.
Seeing this play was a complete road to Damascus eye opener for me. I probably hadn’t gone out of my way to see unknown (to me) works, the outcome of which is that I was circling around familiar tales and preventing the opportunity for new experiences. Seeing this made me hungry for more.
Bovell’s use of individual monologues for each main character, dotted at almost equal intervals throughout, ensures every character has a role of significance, and counter-balances the many internal tiffs and misunderstandings and explosions of withheld grievances that fill the play.
The structure of the “Things I know to be true” is another ingredient in the play’s coherence and poignancy. The sections of the show are broken into the seasons with the appearance of the garden and the work being done on it echoing each season in turn, and the play as a whole is bookended by a phone call that you are tempted to forget about as you are dragged into the story, until it comes back to kick you in the guts.
On the page, It’s all very well crafted around Bovell’s superb grasp and usage of dialog, Australian (but not jingoistic) vernacular and even the offsetting comic moments (like Bob’s perpetual inability to learn how to use the coffee machine - weaponised ignorance?) that are dropped organically and always successfully, like the perfect amount of seasoning to enhance but not overpower a meal.
The play deals with the bumpy, messy, loving, hurting and enduring nature of relationships and how we are both nurtured and tortured by them And the title itself is a succinct summary of how, in a world where even the things we know become un known, and we don’t know what to believe, that it leaves us taking stock of the things we know to be true.
To the performances
For me at least, in this play, his words were glorious and as a formative writer, inspiring and the cause of great envy. As I’ve seen this before I can probably just refer to the previous review I did of its powerful Bladwell Productions performance for more information about the story set up and characterisations and themes.
But as much as I liked that first production… loved it in fact… bugger me dead if the version I saw from the Lyric at Hammersmith didn’t knock me on my arse again, full feels and full tears. Just as powerful, just as affecting, all over again.
Without making comparisons, I think one of the elements that worked extremely well in both productions is that the heavy-on-realism and naturalism script was accompanied by quite symbolic movement and staging, making it all that much more theatrical and enthralling.
There’s no real point in me offering an opinion on whether this could work in Goulburn today. Yes it did. Brilliantly. I’ve seen several other Bovell plays. All of them have been good. Several have been exceptional, including this one.
Materials accessed:
- "Things I know to be true" script - Australian Plays Transform website, free if using one week trial.
- "Things I know to be true" pro-shot video - performed at the Lyric Hammersmith in London and available by subscription at Digital Theatre streaming service.
- "Things I know to be true" theatrical review of the Bladwell Productions performance at the GPAC in Goulburn in August 2022 (and written by me).
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