Two Weeks With The Queen

Children's theatre, it seems to me, has come a long way in the past few years, and nowhere has the relative sophistication of the art been more on display than at Windmill, a dedicated national children's theatre company based here in Adelaide.

Behind the scenes at their latest performance, Morris Gleitzman's 'Two Weeks With The Queen', things are frantic but on schedule, Director Wayne Harrison tells me.

"We're in the middle of dress rehearsals, it's going very well, it's a great work, but there's a whole other show going on behind the scene. Its organized chaos, six actors play about 20 roles between them, and so a lot of our time and effort goes into tracking backstage. The spine of everything we do in the theatre is the stage managers... if everything goes like clockwork it'll be okay. The analogy I use is of a swan churning underwater," he laughs.

'Two Weeks With The Queen' was adapted in 1991 from the novel of the same name, and tells the story of twelve year old Colin, who finds out that his younger brother Luke is dying of cancer. Colin is sent to stay with relatives in London, to protect him from the reality of Luke's condition; but he has other ideas, including a plan to save his brother...

As a work for children, Harrison says, it's a natural. He saw the potential years ago, was instrumental in turning the novel into a script, and this season for Windmill will mark the ninth occasion he's directed a production of the play.

"Anyone can see how this would be a prime example, take the essence of it and enhance it for stage. The thing that attracted me was that it's a fantastic story, and so well told," he says, pointing out that he sees nothing wrong with taking slightly controversial topics and presenting them for a younger audience.

"It challenges the notion that hope springs eternal... for a 12 year old boy there are things in life that must be faced up with, his eight year old brother has cancer and is going to die, and what he does might be the first adult decision of his life," he explains. "Does Colin continue with his quest or go back to his brother for the last few days of his life?"

Harrison mentions in passing the horrible news of the young girl murdered in Perth last week - the news was just breaking on the morning we talked... "this is horrible, this is not appropriate, but there it is, it happens. An act such as this is the sort of reality children cannot really be shielded from," he asserts.

"The seduction of the piece is those characters, and some of them are irresistible; it has a comic aspect and it swings happily between being comic and moving."

It doesn't give too much away to reveal that in 'Two Weeks With The Queen' Colin seeks and audience with the monarch and ends up with a different type of queen entirely, one who is dying of AIDS.

"Audiences engage on a number of levels - to be changed by it or engaged by it, usually they succumb to its charms, it works for adults as well as children," says Harrison of the play delightedly.

Alex Wheaton

'Two Weeks With The Queen' is now playing in the Playhouse at the Festival Centre