It is a testament to the insight of a playwright when an autobiographical work is far from flattering. The Chapel Perilous manages to be romanticised, satirical and sharply self-reflective all at once, the component parts not always seamlessly blended but definitely crafted to the intent of the author.

Dorothy Hewett was a poet and the lyrical expression throughout the text certainly makes the play feel different, revelling in the evocative power of words.

The plot follows Sally Banner, an analogue for Hewett from rebellious youth through various failed loves and a constant search for identity. Sally starts out as a smart, spunky youth, chasing ideals but doomed to be unsatisfied by the world. She claims to see impulses of the flesh as more important that rationality but time and again the conflict between lust, love and reason will cause her pain.

Not that Sally herself is a put upon innocent. As the play progresses we see more and more that she does harm to herself as much as others. Framed through her own lens, side characters are often heightened and absurd, but as Sally grows, some of this becomes obvious as self-deception.

The story culminates in a self-accusatory show-trial, absurd in tone but emotional in content. Sally undertakes a journey of self-discovery, both literal and symbolic, and what she finds is found wanting.

The eclectic nature of the play is something like the stained glass window which overhangs the set: smaller, disparate pieces brought together to create something intricate and fascinating. As such it’s a great piece for a theatre studies production with a wide variety of material for the cast to sink their teeth into. There’s a mix of realistic and absurd characters, some nice choral singing and dancing and a broad mix of tones. As such the cast works well together as an ensemble, shifting between various characters.

Lani McNamara shows good versatility in the lead role, her Sally possessing both a confident charisma and a selfish arrogance, capable of revels and depression. It’s a heavy role to play and McNamara moves well between parts.

James Smith and Tara Given play off each other well as comically archetypical parents, and both actors get a powerful moment in the later play, Smith with a prolonged courtroom outburst and Given with a subtle performances as an invalid.

It’s a well cast production with a mix of material covering interesting ground and moments of the mid 20th century.

Poetry fans will find beautifully integrated verse and there are plenty of ideas on personal and social identity to grapple with. 

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Australian writer Dorothy Hewett’s reputation as an eccentric and controversial writer resonates through this play, which Gaye Poole has chosen to draw out the talents of the Theatre Studies Play Production students at Waikato University.

Hewett’s breadth of style in poetry, script, fiction and political polemic is also evident; a challenging vehicle for the cast and crew, with its non-naturalistic elements of Music Hall, poetry, melodrama and Brechtian interjections.  The play is such a pastiche that pulling it into shape as a production must have been a challenge in itself and Poole has wisely used a strong simple base set, of an altar with spectacular stained glass window: the launching and ending point of the play about a girl who refuses to conform.  With few props and several costume changes, the rest depends on actors, song, dance, sound and light. 

Sally Banner is at an Anglican School for girls and refuses to bow to the chapel altar, nor obey the instructions of her superiors: the Headmistress, Canon and Head Nun, Sister Rosa, a formidable trinity of hypocrites, played with fervour by Kendra Boyle, Melanie Allison and Andrew T. Lyall.  She attempts to seduce one of her school friends and begins her perilous journey through life.

Her sense of non-conformity is so strong that she breaks all the rules of any non-conformist group she  seems to belong to – as a feminist she is far too dependent on male sexuality; similarly, in her seduction of her girlfriend, she wishes “you had been a man”.  As a communist, she weakens the comradeship by seducing the leader of the workers’ party. Banner lurches through the 30s and into the 60s in a picaresque retelling, full of chorus work, cameos and stock characters.

Alternating nights with Christina Wilson in the huge, contradictory role of Sally, Lani McNamara draws out the serious self-absorbed aspects of the character, with great conviction. Onstage for most of the play, working love scenes with all of the male cast and one of the females, and often a soloist against the chanting, singing or jeering chorus, this is no easy task and an admirable achievement.

Each of the four men in Sally’s romantic life reveal her as being too sensual, too much the poet to resist the perilous pathway of the flesh. Michael (Henry Garfitt), is her earliest lover and the one she keeps returning to, then there’s David (Jack Knowles), her poet friend, finally Thomas (David Simes), whom she marries and Saul (James Smith), her blue collar union man. All give strong performances, especially in their one-on-one scenes with Sally. In addition to these characters, each takes on several other roles in the company of players, and operates as chorus members or other cameo roles. 

Two other standout performers are Eden Chappell – first as Judith, the girlhood peer of Sally’s affections and then later as a showgirl dancer, as well as chorus and smaller roles – and Tara Given as Sally’s conventional and limited mother, diminutive in size but with a strong voice.

The entire cast is to be commended for the quick changes of song, costume, focus and tack. The ensemble work really lifts the energy so that even when the play is confusing, it is never dull!

Gaye Poole must be congratulated for holding that through line of focus and attention to detail, especially aided by the musical elements, which punctuate the various milestones that Sally lives though.  The sound and lighting, with well-cued voice-over effects of the real thoughts of characters while their mouths speak clichés, are a feature of the play, while a live piano accompanist, Kathleen Tay, links and embellishes scenes while adding to the non-naturalistic effects of the whole. 

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