The Nightwatchman

Daniel Keene usually writes plays about strugglers or outcasts, but he gives the ordinary speech of these rough characters an often beautiful poetry of thought.

A prolific Australian writer for 30 years, his plays are far more frequently staged overseas than at home. Indeed The Nightwatchman premiered in France in 2005.

It’s about a country family home being sold and an old blind man leaving it and his treasured garden for a secure apartment. His daughter fusses and packs boxes and his son looks on remotely -“ both showing far more agony than he at this letting go of their past.

As Bill, William Zappa snaps and shouts but less in anger at the passing of his time than in impatience at his children for not catching up to their own lives.

Michael (Alex Dimitriades), a photographer, is self-contained and considerate but quietly on the edge of breakdown. Helen (Camilla Ah Kin), bored and unhappily married, mourns the transience of all happiness.

In the shadows of the garden Bill speaks to his dead wife but, as he tells his children, It’s a fool who breaks his heart over what is lost.

All this yearning for the past and sense of loss about the future brings the autumnal mood of Chekhov’s plays to this country garden. Keene even has some fruit brought in from the nearby cherry orchard. Yet any of us who have packed up a family house, especially as a parent slides like Bill into dementia, will relate to The Nightwatchman.

The stillness of the play, more about memories than action, is enlivened by the emotional power of Keene’s language and, in particular, the loving but distant relationship between brother and sister. Dimitriades is at his best as the distant Michael, harbouring, says his dad, some secret like all of us.

Lee Lewis directs a measured production more contemplative than dark, and relieved not with laughter but at least with the smiles of constant recognition.

Curiously the play didn’t linger in the mind for me like a good theatrical experience should, despite fine performances and an artful sound and lighting design. It may be about impending death and letting go when the time is right but it is not a depressing experience.

As the wonderful Zappa says so simply as Bill, We could have been happier.

The Nightwatchman, a Griffin production, is at the Stables Theatre until 7 April.