The Turning - Review

A few nights ago I was lucky enough to attend the first preview showing of a new play - The Turning, a production that is part of The Festival of Perth on at the moment. It’s an adaptation of the book of short stories by West Australian author, Tim Winton.

I am a huge fan of Tim Winton’s books, with Cloudstreet being high up on my list of favourite books of all time, and the stage production of that book was a fantastic play. The Turning is an incredible book; so beautifully written (as all his books are) - touching, funny, sad and very very West Australian. I guess that’s one of the appeals of his writing, that the stories are set in such familiar places and tell of many familiar experiences. I usually don’t like short stories but this one was an wonderful read, perhaps because the characters were so well-developed even just through the snippets of their lives that we see. The Turning tells the story of the evolution of a family, growing up in a seaside town in WA and then in Perth, the action spanning 30 years or so.

There’s always some trepidation when approaching an adaptation of a much loved book, whether in film or on the stage (although plays always seem to do it a lot better than movies) but this production of The Turning was beautifully done. It was innovative and engaging, the actors were superb and the direction fantastic. I laughed, cried and hung on every word. It was the perfect celebration of the things I love about Western Australia.

I’m not sure exactly what a preview performance is. It was much more than a dress rehearsal, but the tickets were slightly cheaper and perhaps it is a chance for the crew to fix any glitches before the official opening night. The production was quite technical, using video screens to show landscape images (like beach scenes) and as active backdrops. One character delivered her monologue into a handheld video camera which was beamed to the screen. It all worked so well together and really portrayed the locations wonderfully, which are such an important part of the story. We had seats right up the back and were able to see the tears glistening in the eyes of the actor using the video camera. It was very powerful. It was also really funny, with a great mullet-haired character, Ern, with classic Aussie lines such as

“It’s not a f…ing truck, it’s a Landrover!”

All the actors were excellent, with some of them playing multiple roles. The ease with which they switched from one character to the next, often with quite emotional scenes, was impressive.

I can’t recommended this play enough. It was wonderful. If you’re in Perth, do whatever you can to see it. If you’re somewhere else in Australia, find out if it’s coming to you soon. If you’re overseas, I’m sorry . (Actually I saw the production of Cloudstreet in London, so it might end up touring there)