Grey’s Anatomy star Kate Walsh takes the stage in Fremantle

A new theatre company is born with the TV star appearing in tense drama The Other Place.

Kate Walsh in The Other Place, Fremantle Theatre Company. Picture: Court McAllister

Pandemics move in mysterious ways. Having closed down every theatre for months, it has delivered Grey’s Anatomy star Kate Walsh to Western Australia’s shores and inaugurated a new theatre company whose first show featuring Walsh hints at a promising future.

The new Fremantle Theatre Company was launched on Saturday with The Other Place, US writer Sharr White’s thriller-like exposition of conspiracy and loss in the life of brilliant scientist Dr Juliana Smithton.

The production’s strengths rest largely on the acting talent of Walsh, whose face is also familiar to viewers as Olivia Baker in 13 Reasons Why, The Handler in Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy and most recently a small but pivotal role in TV’s show-of-the-moment, Emily in Paris.

Walsh found herself in Perth in March as COVID-19 locked down international air travel. She has said her enforced sojourn has been so professionally and personally rewarding that she’s planning to stay on, visa permitting, while also pursuing her Hollywood career.

The Other Place is an aptly named vehicle for the Australian stage debut of the normally New York-based Walsh. The title refers to the place where the central character Juliana last saw her daughter before she disappeared years earlier, but equally it becomes clear Juliana’s once-fine mind also is straying to another place.

Walsh injects clever touches of wry humour into her portrayal of a sharp-tongued and mildly manic high achiever shedding her corporate high heels after a pharmaceutical conference. She’s pondering a disturbing episode in which, while spruiking her drug breakthrough for dementia, she thinks she spots a woman in a yellow bikini in the suited crowd. It’s as puzzling as her husband Ian’s declaration that he’s leaving her, or his refusal to believe that their missing daughter has called her.

Dalip Sondhi as Ian radiates exasperation over his wife’s accusations and erratic acts. If playwright White’s script is slightly too pacy and sharp-edged to give space to the harrowing emotional impact of mind lapses on all parties, director Chris Edmunds achieves pathos and perfect pace in a crucial scene between Juliana and a young woman occupying the “other place”.

Walsh transforms from a combative Juliana into a woman surrendering to an invisible foe. Her considerable skill is matched by a remarkably mature performance by Lucy Kate Westbrook as the hostile young woman who opts empathetically to embrace Juliana’s world.

The launch of Fremantle’s new theatre company comes nearly a decade after the port city’s Deckchair Theatre closed its doors in 2012.

Like the felicitous arrival of a Hollywood star, and the impressive six-week turnaround to stage this play, it can only be an auspicious sign when a new source of work for actors and theatre workers emerges despite ongoing restrictions on audience numbers.

The Other Place, by Sharr White. Fremantle Theatre Company, Victoria Hall, Fremantle. Until November 8.