HONOUR by Joanna Murray-Smith

Directed by Lee Gerchow

Season 12 – 29 July
Public Nights July 21, 22, 28 & 29

An engrossing study of betrayal, suffering, love and hope.

Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith's 95-minute HONOUR -- a taut drama that explores a 32-year marriage gone awry -- is sensitive, thoughtful, insightful and wonderfully well acted by a stage-savvy ensemble at the ILT: Incinerator Theatre, directed by Lee Gerchow.

Gus (deftly played by Jim Orr) is a journalist with an international reputation as being one of the brightest and most clever thinkers in Australia . Gus' clearheaded, bright and loving wife, Honor (in an outstanding performance by Brenna Lee-Cooney) had a promising future as a writer & poet but willingly sacrificed her career for his. Their only child, 24-year-old Sophie (played by Jordana Farlow in her first outing with ILT), is an under achiever at loose ends with her life and a constant source of irritation to both her parents; especially Gus.

Ultimately, we learn that Sophie is still dependent on her parents and Honor is dependent on Gus. How do you break through the dependency, especially if it is decades in the making? During their married years, Gus and Honor have settled down to middle age with a certain amount of clarity and resolve that includes things such as kindness, loyalty and grace -- and honour .

All seems to be going smoothly until bright, driven, tough-as-nails young journalist, Claudia (in a sultry performance by Cat Taylor) comes into their lives. She is an aspiring writer who is interviewing Gus, and the two hit it off. Despite all of his graduate degrees and worldly learning, Gus is smitten by Claudia's youth and aggression and leaves his wife.

At this point, Murray-Smith explores -- in a series of one-on-one confrontations -- the meaning of love and marriage and all that it implies after 32 years of living together. Claudia is certainly the catalyst in "Honor," and it is with a deft sense of Murray-Smith's irony (and some humour) that she brings things to a suitable resting place - with a newfound sense of self-discovery, and certainly a sense of hope.

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