Summer and Smoke

It’s been quite some time since I last had a chance to see a university theatre production. Despite this, however, I have always had a soft spot for this particular style of theatre. It gives you an opportunity to see some up and coming talent doing their thing before they hopefully become famous, and while the ability level of the various participants tends to create some solid divides, there is always a lot to love about university theatre performances. So it was with great anticipation that I attended the first student-performed QUT production of 2011. The group had chosen, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, to stage a production of Tennessee Williams’ 1948 play Summer and Smoke, a play about love, passion, and desperation. The themes themselves were quite relevant to the contemporary audience viewing the performance, and while the performances were quite variable in their quality, this was overall an excellent production which had a lot of good things going for it, including a very interesting use of the QUT Gardens Theatre stage space that I found myself falling in love with from the moment I walked into the theatre.

Summer and Smoke centres on the relationship between Alma Winemiller, the highly-strung daughter of the local preacher, and John Buchanan Jr, the unrepressed son of the town’s resident GP (and up and coming GP himself). Both Alma and John start off as the mirror opposite of the other person, and as the play progresses, we see the two characters undergo quite a dramatic change of personality, in effect becoming the philosophical opposite by the close. It’s an interesting journey to see these two characters undertake, and while at times the dialogue and content is a bit overly theatrical, the message is clear, and is one that is still relevant to a modern audience. The notion of physical pleasure vs spiritual pleasure is at the heart of Summer and Smoke, and it is through this journey that Alma and John embark on that we explore what these concepts really mean. Throw in a sub-plot surrounding the ongoing issue of mental health, and you have all that makes the script of Summer and Smoke so interesting and compelling, more than 60 years after it was originally written.

As I mentioned before, the variety of performance quality is always very apparent when viewing a university production. This is, of course, due to the fact that all of the performers are still refining their craft. There was, however, one absolutely stand out actress that I do feel requires special mention. Celia Massingham was simply superb in her role as Alma Winemiller. Her performance was consistently rock-solid, and she conveyed beautifully the emotion and passion of this interesting character. The journey that Alma goes on through the script was perfectly presented by Celia, and I honestly do hope she gets a full-time acting gig in 2012. She is a star to watch out for in coming years. The rest of the cast did an excellent job, so please don’t think that my singling out of one actress meant no-one else was very good. Director Leonard Meenach certainly had a great group of performers to work with on Summer and Smoke, so no real complaints there.

The directorial and production design choices were interesting, and mostly effective. The set itself was fantastic, and better than I ever expected a university production to be. Two “house sets” made up the sides of the space, with an interesting raked section in centre-stage providing the hill that the characters walk up towards the overgrown statue. A great idea, well realised. And while there were some great lighting effects, the overuse of stock period music did start to grate towards the end. But even this was just a minor niggle. And I do applaud the team for daring to break out of the stage space, and move up into the isles of the auditorium to stage certain scenes. The only problem here, however, was that it made certain sections hard to see, as the human head was never designed to turn a complete 360 degrees. But these were all minor niggles. The QUT team should be pleased with their efforts on Summer and Smoke, as it was overall an excellent production. Apart from a few minor niggles, the entire thing came together and created some real theatre magic. And that is the biggest plus of all here.