Holden Street Theatres’ latest production, A Cheery Soul, is currently playing to rave reviews. A Cheery Soul, written by the great Patrick White, is celebrated as Australia’s only Nobel Prize for Literature Laureate’s funniest and most trenchant play. It is a dark comedy set in 1959 in the suburb of Sarsaparilla, 30 kms out of Sydney.
Starring as the unforgettable Miss Docker is Holden Street Theatres Artistic Director, Martha Lott. Martha recently spoke to Glam Adelaide about A Cheery Soul and what drew her into the performing arts industry.
“I was born into it. My father was a concert promoter, and he would tour events all around. He would promote all the tours that came into South Australia, and he was heavily involved in the University Footlights. He was also a jazz musician. My mother was a producer and writer for the Curiosity Show, and the writer for Humphrey B. Bear. So she was heavily involved in the theatre, and they were both involved in the Festival of Arts – Mum was one of the founding members of Come Out Youth Festival. So it’s their fault, because they put me on the stage at the age of 7 and I got bitten by the bug.”
Martha shared with us what the driving force was to get Holden Street Theatres resident production company off the ground.
“I haven’t done a lot of acting in my own venue and I wanted to make that happen. I wanted to be able to work in some really great classic texts and work in an ensemble with other local South Australian actors. I have done a number of one-woman shows and they’re fantastic and very challenging, but I also wanted to work in an ensemble. Peter Goers and I had also wanted to work together for a number of years, but his ABC commitments made it challenging. So when he finished at the ABC it seemed like a really good time to get started. Now the company is starting to branch into a lot of different areas, and there’s a new work that I want to write as well.”
We were curious to find out what drew Holden Street Theatres to A Cheery Soul.
“This show is one that Peter Goers picked. I didn’t really know it before he had decided that we were going to do this one. At the first read of the script I saw how hard it was but I’m very glad that he did choose it. I love Patrick White’s work – doing an Australian drama is amazing. There’s not a lot of great classic Australian drama being staged at the moment either.”
A Cheery Soul is directed by Adelaide’s own Peter Goers. Martha gave us an insight into what the rehearsal process was like with Peter and the cast.
“Because it’s such a bizarre play where it sort of starts in realism and ends in almost surrealism or absurdism, it’s been difficult. Everyone’s been challenged by it. It’s been fun, obviously, because it’s lovely working in an ensemble and there are some fantastic people to work with. It’s always good to work with new people because you get challenged by them – I like learning about people and how they work. Goers likes to start running the show as early as possible in the rehearsal process so we can then shape and build on what we’ve done.”
Martha has played a variety of wonderful roles over the past few years, and we asked her how she goes about approaching a character.
“I always record the read-through and listen back to it over and over again so I can get the full picture from beginning to end. Then it’s really just a matter of going for it and leaving yourself completely behind. My job is to bring that character to life, so I tend to really focus on what the playwright wrote and focus very much on the script. My training has taught me that I don’t need to do a massive amount of research and in-depth analysis until I start to get challenged – I just go for it.”
For A Cheery Soul, Holden Street Theatres have kept the cost of tickets low so it is accessible to as many people as possible. All tickets are only $25.20 each (plus $3.30 booking fee).
“I’m really excited about audiences getting to see this Patrick White play. It’s such an important and beautiful piece of theatre that isn’t performed that much. I’m very interested to see how the audience reacts to it as well and what they pick up from it.”
A Cheery Soul
Holden Street Theatres
September 24 – October 12, 2024
https://www.holdenstreettheatres.com/a-cheery-soul
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