Written by Patricia Cornelius. Sydney Theatre Company. Roslyn Packer Theatre. 23 May – 17 Jun, 2023.
Do Not Go Gentle sees five explorers push through ice and snow to be the first to reach the South Pole. Do Not Go Gentle sees five people in the winter of their lives face dementia in various ways. Do Not Go Gentle is a stunning piece of theatre.
Taking its name and theme from the famous Dylan Thomas poem, evoking a beauty & majesty to ageing while reframing Robert Falcon Scott’s failed Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole, Do Not Go Gentle is an ironically gentle look at the havoc dementia wreaks on lives and loved ones. Filled with compassion and warm humour that laughs with, but never at, its characters. Rejecting sentimentality or mawkishness, writer Patricia Cornelius creates a moving and poetic play that never turns away from the issues it’s steeped in.
Director Paige Rattray and team of Charles Davis (design), Paul Jackson (lighting designer) and James Brown (composer and sound designer) bring the desolate, epic expanse of the Arctic to the Roslyn Packer Theatre. This may be my favourite set in a very long time. Some stunning comic touches, such as sleeping bags that descend from the ceiling, are just the icing on the cake. The entire design takes the seemingly simple and elevates it with skill and humour.
An exceptional cast, lead by Phillip Quast, play this group of explorers/patients each dealing with their lives while navigating around the gaps in their minds. Brigid Zengeni’s Bowers can’t remember her family, but recalls her career interviewing criminals and politicians. Vanessa Downing’s Wilson at first seems to be freed from burden by her lack of memory. Peter Carroll, as Evans, is a left-wing activist who refuses to go quietly. While John Gaden’s Oates is being pursued by a creature in the darkness that he can’t make peace with. One of the most beautiful performances comes from 78 year old opera singer Marilyn Richardson, who plays Maria, a Serbian immigrant who has lost her country, her family and now, slowly, her mind.
In a wonderful piece of writing, all the supplementary roles are played by Josh McConville (Triple X) who inhabits the husbands, sons and memories of the patients – laying each part with the fears and pains of those whose connections are ripped away by the cruel march of dementia.
It’s a remarkable feat that the play never feels depressing or overly burdened. The audience is left with a sense of humour and beauty that fills every scene. Even the stabs of hard reality never puncture the aura of poetry that surrounds these people in their darkest hours.
The restraint in not over-using the Thomas poem is admirable, and adds weight to its eventual recitation. These characters are raging against the dying of the light. They refuse to fade, even as the curtain falls.
Cultural Binge 
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