How do you get six of Australia’s best-loved theatre actors on stage at the same time? According to Matthew Whittet, the playwright behind Belvoir’s new show Seventeen, you stop them in the present day, strip them of any later-earned accolades, and make them 17 again.
Directed by Anne Louise-Sarks, Seventeen puts septuagenarian actors Peter Carroll, John Gaden, Anne Volska, Maggie Dence and Barry Otto in Texta-signed uniforms and has them counting down to the end of the school year. As the bell sounds, Mike (Gaden) yells, “Fuck you all,” and the audience roars at the ping of nostalgia .
It’s a moment we can all relate to: finishing school, turning 18, with the world waiting. The hints of nostalgia scattered through the play (Tom, played by Peter Carroll: “Do you think we’ll remember tonight? When like we’re old?” Mike, played by John Gaden: “I’ll be too smashed.”) remind us that this is one of those moments of change – drenched in emotion or alcohol – that’s worth revisiting.
The opening scenes are an outright laugh. While Gaden does a mean job at impenetrable tough guy Mike he also “shakes it off” better than most 17-year-olds I know, (thanks for the permission, Taylor Swift). His pal Tom (Peter Caroll) is a softer soul. He’s ready to get “shit-faced”, but indulges in reading the letter he wrote to himself aged 12. “Think of the thing that means most to you,” he reads, “and then do something about it.”
Sue (Dence) dates Mike and is the queen bee, unsure about what to do next year. She is sure about getting Edwina (Volska), who’s all about keeping face, drunk. Mike’s younger sister Lizzie (Genevieve Lemon) is the aptly annoying “little shit”, while Otto does a heartwrenching job as the school loser Ronny, who has a tale behind his woes.
The strength of the show is that it delves into the moments of clarity and self-reflection, behind the usual scenes of angst-driven adolescence.
Whittet investigates the teenagers’ appointed roles of the lad, the loser, the nerd and the queen bee, to see who’s underneath. And with a cast of 70-year-olds, the point is made stronger. Their characters run deeper than their sagging skin.
The evening pivots on their secrets: like the well-executed allusions to Ronny’s home life, which stop the audience cackling in their tracks as they realise where he’s dragging his sleeping bag to.
Each of the characters is preoccupied with how he or she can hold on to this moment in time. This is where the play hits home on all it is trying to be: that pause on the threshold of post-high school life.
Still, while the play is set in 2015, as indicated with the inclusion of Shake it Off, the script doesn’t include the verbal quips of teens today. While Gaden and Carroll repeatedly and hilariously declare that they’re “gonna get shit-faced”, the dialogue doesn’t quite deliver the emoji-speak of most 17-year-olds. Similarly, while the characters take a group selfie, the play doesn’t capture the prevalence of social media, reference a snapchat, or talk about sex in the language that today’s teens do.
But while Seventeen is not so much a porthole into the life of today’s Aussie teens, it’s a glimpse at that moment of transformation.
And with the all-star class, what makes the play is the richness of the actors’ performance and an audience who is old enough to appreciate them.
• Seventeen is on at Belvoir in Sydney until 13 September
