Four inseparable friends find themselves adrift when the “glue” that holds them together, Sylvie, has died. The remaining three, Wendy, Jude and Adele, come together at Christmas, eleven months after Sylvie has left them, to pack up her house and belongings. The Weekend follows the events of their “not holiday” and examines the complicated relationships we have with our oldest, closest friends.
Sue Smith (Saving Mr Banks) adapts Charlotte Wood’s bestselling novel of the same name for the Belvoir stage, preserving Wood’s gentle tone and artfully rendered relationships between the three friends – with three of Australia’s acting greats giving grounded performances that beg to be known. Adele (Belinda Giblin) is an ageing actress, running short on money and work but not a sense for the dramatic. Wendy (Melita Jurisic) has five doctorates and another book on the way, as well as a smelly, aging dog named Finn that she can’t let go of. Jude (Toni Scanlan) is a pedantic, perfectionist restaurateur who feels she’s never made herself whole, with an on-and-off-again secret married lover always at the back of her mind. The actresses give rich performances, with Scanlan’s tough love evoking an eerie familiarity for those of us with gruff, yet caring, best friends (or grandmothers).
The Weekend is an important story that asks what older women really want as they age...
Wendy’s dog Finny takes the form of a puppet, operated brilliantly by Keila Terencio and created by Indigo-Rose Redding. He is skeletal and rickety, somewhere between this world and the next, and a constant reminder of the fact that the three women’s bodies are starting to fail them despite their best efforts. Jude can’t stand him, and yet she is the one who finds herself speaking to him when no one is around.
Wood’s novel was shortlisted for the 2020 Stella Prize, and her insights into the characters are keenly portrayed through mostly internal passages connected to nature, aging, death and friendship. Jude’s fear of inadequacy is particularly poignant in the novel, and along with other essential threads, this doesn’t translate as well on stage. Somewhat absent in this version is the way Jude depends on her secret lover Daniel, as he gently pushes her towards a more loving approach to her friends in her remembered (or imagined) conversations with him. Their relationship is built only through text messages in the play, so the heartbreaking moments between them near the end don’t pack as much impact as they could. Where Wood’s writing is full of vivid imagery and secrets, Smith’s script leans further into safer, surface-level aspects of the relationships between the three women.
The set, designed by Stephen Curtis, places the action on the whitewashed wooden deck of Sylvie’s house, backed by video design by Susie Henderson and gentle white lighting by Damien Cooper. Dappled light between leaves falls on the back walls, accompanied by the sound of the ocean and birds composed by Steve Francis. The deck takes on multiple forms: the front verandah of a coastal restaurant, Wendy’s broken-down car on the freeway, a hospital, a park, and a church. It’s a dreamlike version of a coastal Australian holiday town, a bit of joy edged with the lingering shadows of ageing and death.
The Weekend is an important story that asks what older women really want as they age, however this stage adaptation is a more straightforward version of the delightfully meandering words in its novel form. While the play is a showcase for some strong, embodied character performances, it is somewhat restricted by, rather than inspired by, the possibilities that the novel presents. For this critic, it doesn’t bring quite enough to stick the emotional landing it could have been capable of.
The Weekend plays at Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills, until September 10, 2023. Tickets range from $37-$93 and you can snap them up over here.
