Daughters of Heaven
By Michelanne Forster
Presented by Amdram Whanganui
Directed by Mel Hawkins
Reviewed by Paul Brooks
There would not be a lot of New Zealanders who know nothing at all about the particularly gruesome murder committed by school friends Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme in June 1954.
That's possibly because of the film, Heavenly Creatures, brought to the cinema screens of the world by Peter Jackson in 1994, starring Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme and Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Parker.
But before the film, there was the play written by Michelanne Forster, and it was that play we saw on Saturday night at Amdram Theatre in Guyton St.
There was a bit of everything on stage that night, from the absurd to the tragic, but it faithfully told the tale of two 15-year-old girls, obsessed with the likes of Mario Lanza and James Mason, their own complex fantasies and their need to be with each other, no matter what.
Shaila Hawkins (Juliet) and Samantha Fleming (Pauline) took us into the girls' private world where they had more fantasy-appropriate names for each other and had invented a whole new reality.
They played their parts well, handling the difficult script with relative ease and looking very much at home in their new personae.
A lot of the story is told by the Hulme family's housekeeper, Bridget O'Malley, played with credibility and gossipy outrage by Cathy Gribble, with the Crown Prosecutor (Alan Brown) often narrating from below the stage.
He has just the right amount of gravitas and personal affront to carry the role nicely. His obvious dislike for and complete incomprehension of the two teenagers would have been natural in 1954, but it adds an element of pompous humour today, while Mrs O'Malley is almost a caricature, deliberate, I'm sure.
Juliet's mother, Hilda Hulme, self-centred, well-to-do and more concerned with her love affair with Walter Perry (Jimmy Sutcliffe) than with what her daughter is getting up to, was carried off admirably by Bridget Rison, while Walter shows more paternal concern for Juliet than her father, easy-going Henry Hulme (Richard Leith).
Honora Rieper, Pauline's mother, played by Anna Hagan, is the victim of the girls' plot to spend their lives together. She needs to be killed, thus removing a major obstacle in the way of their happiness.
She and her husband, Herbert (Russell Penton), are probably the most ordinary of all the characters, completely unaware of the depth of the girls' (platonic) infatuation for each other, waiting hopefully for the day when Juliet returns to England with her mother so they can have their daughter back with her own family.
Essential on-stage parts are also played by Kathryn Fleming (matron at the prison), Phil Portland (Reg Medlicott, lawyer) and Luke Holmes (policeman). Their relationships with the girls are varied but believably accomplished. Richard Leith also plays lawyer Terrence Greeson in the courtroom scenes.
Heard but not seen is the booming voice of Justice Adams, played by Dylan Peterson with suitable confidence and just the right amount of bass.
The play relies on a swift and efficient backstage crew, able to cope with numerous scene changes and continuity minutiae, while Mario Lanza serenades the audience and meticulous lighting takes us from place to place on stage with speed and accuracy, requiring the actors to freeze in tableaux until the light breathes life. Sound and lighting played a vital role in Daughters of Heaven.
Sometimes the play's storyline is not linear, putting added pressure on all concerned, but there was seldom a glitch and the complicated sequence of events was coped with nicely by cast and crew.
The audience on Saturday night was impressed, as far as I could tell, and the fact that this is based on a true story had its own effect on the appreciative crowd.
It takes a lot of people to make a show like this work, from front of house to behind the stage, from costumes to sets and props, makeup and hair, publicity and general management, with the director controlling everything on stage. Well, it worked, and Daughters of Heaven is well worth watching.
The play continues this Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7.30pm. Book at the i-Site in Taupo Quay or online at www.iticket.co.nz.