Age and homosexuality

Press, 7 May 1986, Page 27

Age and homosexuality

Age and homosexuality are issues separately dealt with in the Court Theatre’s next two productions.

“A Place on Earth,” by the Canadian playwright Betty Jane Wylie and directed by lanthe Taylor, will open in Court’s Studio on May 9. It is a play about an old woman in a room — which is all she has, her “place on earth” — and her despair and loneliness.

To write the play, Betty Jane Wylie left her home and went to live on the amount of money a 65-year-old woman with no other resources would have.

This found her m one small room, in a house where she shared a bathroom and a refrigerator with five other tenants.

The play's single character, Peggy Woodgreen, played by Shirley Kelly, evolved from this. She is a retired school teacher and widow, struggling to survive on her slender pension and attempting to come to terms with the degradation of rape.

“A Place on Earth” premiered at Dunedin’s Fortune Theatre last year, lanthe Taylor also directed that season.

A great deal of research with advice from groups such as the Arthritis Society and Rape

Crisis went into the production, she said.

“We found that although the play is Canadian it could have been set anywhere,” lanthe Taylor said. “We set it in New Zealand and discovered many situations like Peggy’s in this country.”

The Court’s other, forthcoming production, “Torchsong Trilogy,” by Harvey Fierstein and directed by Tony Taylor, is completely different It opens on May 17. It is three playlets which concern the same characters. The playlets are held together by the music of Lady Blues, a nightclub singer. Arnold is a Jewish

cabaret performer, who is a homosexual. His relationship with Ed, and the resulting problems with Arnold’s mother, make a very poignant play.

It is full of New Yorkstyle humour that helps make the characters’ situations more important than society’s views.

Arnold is played by Stuart Devenie, Ed t>y Peter Elliot and Arnold's mother by Judie Douglass. Supporting characters are played by Jon Pheloung, Anthony Hodgson and Alison Quigan. Mary Brennan sings as Lady Blues and John Densem plays the piano.