Hotel Sorrento
HIT Productions
Her Majesty's Theatre
Season closed

Australian playwright Hannie Rayson has been compared to David Williamson partly because their plays of the '80s have stood the test of time and partly to similarities in the material. 'Hotel Sorrento' is one of those. Translated into twelve languages, the won the Australian Writers Guild Award and the NSW Premier's Literary Award. Rayson spins a yarn of three sisters who reunite after ten years. One, a widow and her son, stayed back at the family house in the eponymous beach town and has looked after their father to his dying day. Another has migrated to New York and the third is up for a Booker Prize and now lives in London with her English husband. But there are secrets and things unsaid; unmentioned until the novel came out in which fictional events have suspicious verisimilitude with family history. Rayson said that she "wanted to send the audience into the night with all sorts of things to talk about over coffee," and there is plenty to discuss - family loyalty, telling the truth, emotional protection, guilt and gratitude.

Other characters, including a neighbour and her politically inclined guest, add other layers. The old chestnuts of Australian male chauvinism, and a perceived intellectual vacuity in Australia - which can only be detected by going overseas - in fact looks a little dated. Dear old Dad is a useless character and is written out at the end of Act One.

The cast is full of television actors - Kevin Harrington and Roger Oakley among others - and the production is very appealing to their fans. A bonus is that they all perform extremely well. Also prominent was Adelaide's own Marcella Russo who created a lively and natural characterisation of Pippa, the New Yorker. Jane Nolan was a whirlwind as the complicated novelist who was self-assured and outspoken in her social views but could be easily wounded in a duel due to her unresolved past.

The play is well-crafted in its exposition of fact but Rayson wears her technique on her sleeve. I'm sure it's a good study for the Year 12s although I found the emotional import is never more challenging than a soap opera. Some, like me, may find the lack of a resolving slinging match between the sisters to be unsatisfying while others say life's messy. Whatever the outcome, the ladies are the stars in this show and the play serves the same purpose as a book club novel. The production was only in town for three days but you can catch the movie on DVD.

David Grybowski