Martha Lott shines in the South Australian premiere of Beth Steel’s smash hit wedding drama.
Weddings, funerals, and Christmas all have a fundamental tendency to bring any simmering family tensions bubbling up to the surface. In the smash hit play, Till the Stars Come Down, it’s a wedding that becomes the perfect pressure cooker for old family feuds and uncomfortable home truths.
Set on a sultry summer day in a former mining town in the working-class Midlands, the audience takes the place of guests at the wedding of Sylvia and Marek. What should be a joyful celebration of love and commitment gradually unravels as family conflicts, long-held grudges, prejudices and social tensions emerge, all fuelled by the copious amounts of alcohol consumed on the day.
Holden Street Theatres is staging the South Australian premiere of Beth Steel’s Olivier Award-nominated play. It was hailed as a triumph in the West End, and it’s easy to see why. While the play tackles some big themes it always keeps the focus firmly on the family drama – this is personal rather than political.
The opening scenes are so well done, showing Sylvia (Krystal Cave) getting ready for the wedding with her sisters Hazel (Martha Lott) and Maggie (Michelle Nightingale). They absolutely capture the particular stress of the day. The hair, the dress, the family – it’s so intimate, it feels like we’re there. Part of this intimacy comes from the decision to stage the play ‘in the round’ which puts the audience closer to the action. There’s also a central revolve, something new at Holden Street, that works extremely well at a critical point in the script.
These three leading ladies are very strong. There is a lifetime of shared history here that feels authentic. The ensemble cast is the production’s great strength. Jo St Clair is hilarious as the embarrassing Aunty Carol who always says what she thinks and really loses it after too many glasses of bubbles. Spencer Scholz is deeply powerful as the Polish bridegroom Marek who isn’t being entirely welcomed to the family with open arms. Each character here feels fully realised and the family drama feels genuine and believable.
Director and designer Mike Fagan keeps a firm hand on proceedings, creating the sense that we’re not just watching this family drama, we’re actually there. And that’s what makes the play really work, that we can all identify with this family conflict. Every family has the truths it knows but would rather forget, the things we can say, and the things that are best left unsaid.
There are elements of the script that don’t resonate here as deeply as they do in the UK, especially the long-term damage wrought by the deindustrialisation of northern towns and the closure of the mines. It was fifty years ago, and many of those places have been reinvented as cities of art and culture, but the pain is still deeply felt in those communities. This is very much an ‘up north’ drama.
Rating: Four Stars!
For more information and bookings, visit: holdenstreettheatres.com
