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The Old Ladies by Hugh Walpole
This was the first production done by WDG in the round, and was by all accounts a dramatic triumph for producer Rene Levenspiel. Rene also had a hand in making some adaptations to the script in order to achieve the setting in the round. The play was very well received, and a famous audience member, veteran Australian actor Hayes Gordon actually saw Wyong's presentation. It was presented on Tuesday 21 August and Wednesday 22 August 1962. The programme makes mention that "next year" (ie what would be 1963) we would be moving into the new Memorial Hall (ie our current location). The move must have been delayed for a couple of years beyond the expectations as it did not actually happen until June 1965! The play is a clever dramatisation of a 1924 novel by Hugh Walpole by playwright Rodney Ackland. Three old women each living in her own bed-sitting room in a dilapidated house would not, one might imagine, give scope for dramatic episode. Yet the author has created three characters so inherently different and individual that the mere accident of their coming to live in the same house is sufficient to bring about situations of pathos, humour, intense drama, and ultimate tragedy. The story is drawn from the characters themselves. They do not fit into the story; they are the story. In a particularly harsh winter in a rundown old boarding house in Pontippy Square, Lucy and May have rooms in the house, and through fond memories, simple pleasures and buried hopes, happily help each other through their impoverished days. But in the upstairs room the dark, brooding presence of Agatha threatens to ruin their friendship. Little by little she begins a journey of terror as she manipulates, ridicules and undermines the careful fabric of Lucy and May's lives. Is Lucy's son really alive? Why does May depend so much on her prized possessions? And what is the terrible secret that Agatha craves to discover? Show Programme (pdf file, 563,995 bytes) The Old Ladies novel by Hugh Walpole (text file, 324,606 bytes)
Photo GalleryAlas, we have no photos of the production in the archives. Fortunately these newspaper clippings do contain some pictorial records. The Tuggerah Lakes News article on 22 August below actually includes a production shot from the Tuesday night's performance. Note the knee-rugs in the front row from the "old ladies" in the audience. The below pictures are thumbnails. To see the full-sized pictures, simply click on the thumbnail images.
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