A man's home is his Castle

Last night I went to see the Heidelberg Theatre Company (HTC) production of The Castle. The Castle was a great film and I was sceptical as to whether it would work as a play. The good news is that it was a fantastic adaption of the film.

All parts were well played, but it was the part of Dale Kerrigan that was best. The actor who's name I can't recall was excellent. He narates and acts in the play at the same time so he had a lot of lines to remember. Also of mention is the actor who played Steve-ideas man-Kerrigan, he has an interesting comic style that just cracks up the audience. This was also seen to good effect in the HTC production of Rough Crossing earlier in the year where he played the drunk waiter.

The set was good, even managing to squeeze in a jail (or is that gaol?) cell on the right for brother Wayne who spent most of the play sitting on his bed reading a book, while on the left was the veranda of the holiday house at Bonnie Doon. The centre of the stage though was the Kerrigan's Kitchen, with "ergonometric" chairs. This revolved around to reveal a judges bench for the court scenes.

One particularly funny moment was when the actors walked off the stage except for Wayne Kerrigan in his cell. For a few seconds we were sitting there in darkeness and silence before Wayne too walked off the stage. It was only when they turned up the lights that I realised it was interval and cracked up laughing. It's funny how interval sneaks up on you like that, sometimes you can feel it coming from miles away. Not this time though.

And yeah, that's it really, a good adaption of the film. I almost forgot to mention the good use of musical interudes between scenes, they portrayed the emotion of the previous scene perfectly. Although the only song I can recall now was "Better get a Lawyer" by The Cruel Sea.