Theatre
The first production in Queensland Theatre’s independent program – Big Scary Animal’s The Norman Mailer Anecdote – is a winner. By Yen-Rong Wong.
Big Scary Animal’s The Norman Mailer Anecdote pulls no punches
The Norman Mailer Anecdote is the inaugural production of Queensland Theatre’s DOOR 3 initiative, a program that will support three independent Queensland theatre collectives to stage three works throughout 2024. This support of independent companies is crucial – they provide a platform for under-represented voices, innovative storytelling and emerging theatre artists.
Produced by Brisbane-based company Big Scary Animal and directed by Julian Curtis, The Norman Mailer Anecdote was a finalist for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award for 2022-23, and is award-winning screenwriter Anthony Mullins’ first work for theatre. Big Scary Animal is a rising star of Brisbane indie theatre, with a sold-out season of Savage in Limbo at the Lucky Duck Cafe and Bar in 2019. In 2021, they co-produced the critically acclaimed Anatomy of a Suicide at Metro Arts.
Set during the course of an evening, Mullins’ play dissects and interrogates the power imbalance between men and women and the ways in which this can be used to manipulate memory and personal narratives.
Tony Noble’s set creates the home of an upper middle-class Brisbane family, complete with wood panelling, open shelving and a built-in kitchen. This family is a trio of high achievers, with Helen (Zoë Houghton) on track to be the first woman to be an equity partner at her law firm, after enduring decades of casual sexual harassment from her boss and mentor. Her husband, Marshall (Christopher Sommers), is a novelist and the darling of the Australian grunge literary scene – a not-so-subtle gibe at the elitism that pervades the arts – and their daughter Samantha (Hattie Clegg-Robinson) is a potential scholarship student.
The night centres on two crises, both the result of excessive alcohol consumption. Alcohol is omnipresent in the play. It begins with mother and daughter sharing a bottle of wine, Marshall is handed a glass not long after he comes home and the bottles build up on the kitchen counter as the night progresses. Helen recalls the brazen drunkenness of her law firm’s partners at their dinner and is furious at the double standards that condemn women for the same behaviour – a theme that runs through the production.
The first crisis involves Marshall, who has been accused of a historic sexual assault by a former partner. The second concerns Samantha (also called Sam) being filmed without her consent in a bar during a night out. The fallout from these incidents makes it clear social norms curl around men and their whims – we are more inclined to believe them, to defer to their supposed authority, to give them the benefit of the doubt, to let them get away with bad behaviour. This is further exacerbated by the burden of proof resting on the accuser not only in court but also in the realm of public opinion.
A drunk man may be forgiven his transgressions but a drunk woman will not. It’s a refrain we’ve heard all too often – how drunk was she? Add the weaponisation of social media against young women and it is all too easy to craft a one-dimensional narrative that will stay on a woman’s record forever.
The cast was nervous at the beginning of the play but gained confidence as it progressed, hitting their stride when and where it counted. Houghton’s nuanced performance emphasises the difficulty in balancing practicality with concern for her family – as a lawyer, Helen is acutely aware of the possible legal consequences in Marshall’s and Sam’s cases. Clegg-Robinson’s Sam is funny and endearing, embodying the joys and tribulations of young adulthood in the 2020s.
Sommers is excellent as Marshall, showing how easy it is for abusive men to switch between personas. His character is familiar – a left-leaning, self-professed “nice guy” who claims to be a feminist, and who uses his charisma and connections to gaslight those closest to him. He spins a conspiracy theory as to why he is being “targeted”, citing the imminent release of his new novel. He repeatedly insists he is “a good guy”, betraying that he has an innate understanding of how to use his reputation and character to override accusations against him.
It is telling that Marshall’s favourite party anecdote involves American novelist Norman Mailer, a racist, misogynist and homophobe who, as Sam rightly points out, stabbed one of his six wives twice. We never hear the eponymous story, but Marshall’s keenness to be associated with Mailer foreshadows the play’s plot, as does Helen’s revelation that Marshall’s story has morphed and been manipulated over the years.
Mullins’ script is tight, believable and pulls no punches. Helen may be slightly too heavy-handed – or, as Marshall claims, cruel – when she chastises Sam, but her reaction to her daughter’s drunken antics being broadcast on TikTok is understandable. It is notable that she apologises to her daughter, while Marshall refuses to take any responsibility for his actions.
The plot is complemented by Madeleine Barlow's clever costume design – Helen and Sam begin in outfits for their respective nights out and finish in matching colours, which are also the colours of the main piece of art in their kitchen, while Marshall does not change his clothes at all.
The play’s themes are prescient in our current climate, considering the increasing rate of femicide in Australia. On the last Sunday in April, Lifeline recorded a historic number of calls to its helpline. According to Destroy the Joint, as of April 30, 28 women in Australia have died at the hands of men: of these deaths, 12 occurred in April. Recent data from the Australian Institute of Criminology also shows the rate of women killed as a result of intimate partner violence has increased each year since 2021.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Personal Safety Survey, conducted in 2021-22, showed one in six women had experienced physical or sexual violence by a cohabiting partner, and only 8.3 per cent of sexual assaults were reported to police. In light of these statistics, setting this story in an upper middle-class family is significant – it shows gendered violence transcends class and wealth and more often than not is perpetrated behind closed doors.
Music designer Morgan Francis’ attention to detail shines in the production. Initial transitions between scenes are accompanied by arpeggios in major scales, but as the play progresses, these are slowly replaced by a minor key, contributing to a tense, thriller-like atmosphere. Combined with lighting design by Teegan Kranenburg and Sommers’ brilliant portrayal of Marshall’s simmering anger, the play literally crescendos towards its climax, which doubles as its ending – its unresolved nature reflecting real life.
The Norman Mailer Anecdote is playing at the Diane Cilento Studio at Queensland Theatre until May 18.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 9, 2024 as "Domestic crises".
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