By Rodney Fisher from the play by Roger Hall
Directed by Rodney Fisher
Q Theatre, Queanbeyan 3 - 5 October, 2013
Review by Len Power
The
hazards of being a member of a book club are a great starting point for this
play by Roger Hall and Rodney Fisher. It’s
a very funny and ideal one person show for its star, Amanda Muggleton.
Married,
middle-aged and starting to feel it, Deborah, is a self-confessed bookaholic
who is a member of a book club. It’s not
all rosy at the meetings as Deborah describes the individual quirks of each member
and irritants like the competition over dishes brought for supper. When it’s Deborah’s turn to host the book
club at her home, she invites the author of a book the group is reading and is
drawn into an affair with him. Suddenly
her life seems like one of the bad plots of the books she’s been reading.
Amanda
Muggleton gives a superb performance as Deborah, a woman who seems happy with
her life but who is emotionally vulnerable under the surface, especially now as
her husband isn’t around all that much, their children have all left home and
her ageing mother is driving her crazy.
From the start of the play, Amanda Muggleton demonstrates an almost uncanny
ability to reach out from the stage and make you feel you are her trusted best
friend being told a special secret. It’s
a lengthy play but Amanda Muggleton’s performance ensures that we never lose
interest.
On
a simple lounge room set by Rodney Fisher, surrounded by tall bookshelves, the play is directed
very well by Rodney Fisher, peeling back the layers of Deborah’s character bit
by bit to display the hidden depths of this apparently ordinary woman. He wisely uses Deborah’s nervous energy to
keep her on the move, giving the play a constant sense of action and purpose.
Amanda
Muggleton is one of Australia’s unique and much-loved stars of the theatre. ‘The Book Club’ displays her talents to the full
and is a very enjoyable entertainment with a lot to say under the surface.
