Manic, macabre and wickedly funny

It’s the moment fans have been waiting for, but how good is the new play that Marta Dusseldorp and her director hubby Ben Winspear are staging in Hobart?

THEATRE REVIEW

The Bleeding Tree

starring Marta Dusseldorp, Jane Johnson and Kartanya Maynard and directed by Ben Winspear.

Performances run until Saturday Nov 28 at the Theatre Royal. Tickets at theatreroyal.com.au are

We ran into a friend after the first-night performance of The Bleeding Tree at the Theatre Royal on Thursday.

“I hadn’t been to the theatre for ages and now I want to go all the time,” the young woman said.

With a caveat, I’ll second that. I will go to any play this cast and crew produce and perform.

The Bleeding Tree, as performed by Marta Dusseldorp and her co-stars and as directed by her husband Ben Winspear, is riveting theatre.

The Angus Cerini play has been performed to acclaim interstate, but it is hard to imagine three better actors in the roles than Dusseldorp, as a vengeful matriarch, and Jane Johnson and Kartanya Maynard as her likeminded daughters.

Marta Dusseldorp co-stars in the threehander The Bleeding Tree now playing at Hobart's Theatre Royal. Picture: AMY BROWN

The play opens with the trio reeling following Mum’s fatal shooting of the girls’ father.

“With a bullet through your neck, numbskull of yours never looked so fine.”

The roughly poetic vernacular and the way the characters’ words tumble over one anothers’ like warped echoes is mesmerising.

The deftness of the players’ frequent switches into impersonations of other characters is testament both to the outstanding script and their interpretative power.

It is manic and macabre. And it is funny. Yes, this dreadful story of domestic violence by a bullying bastard whose decomposing corpse is the invisible fourth character is wickedly funny.

Dusseldorp, whose high-profile TV roles seem to call far more on earnestness than humour, here reveals a wonderful talent for comedy. With sly knowingness, she connects brilliantly with the audience and is utterly in her element on this stage.

I was pleased when a slightly underlit Dusseldorp early on self-corrected when she moved.

Johnson and Maynard as damaged daughters give wonderful performances, too, the former channelling immense neurotic energy and the latter bringing the sageness of a hurt child who has seen too much but still exists entirely in the world of family and its complex loyalties.

From left, Marta Dusseldorp, Kartanya Maynard and Jane Johnson in The Bleeding Tree.
Picture: AMY BROWN

Special mention to Liminal Spaces for a beautifully simple set that proves as agile as origami at critical junctures and to local composer and sound designer Glenn Richards.

The new Theatre Royal experience, with entry now from Collins St via expansive Hedberg foyers with box office and bars, is seriously next level.

A class act, all the way.

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The reviewer was a guest of Archipelago Productions and The Theatre Royal

Ben Winspear directs his wife Marta Dusseldorp in The Bleeding Tree.
Picture: LUKE BOWDEN