John Bandler’s area debut with Julibee Motel worth the wait

There’s a film waiting to be made of this play. Not to say it doesn’t work on stage, but dear readers, it is haunted for this viewer by the ghosts of new wave cinema of the 50s and 60s. Local writer John Bandler makes his area debut at Fringe with this well-crafted and searching story.

Treat yourselves and get out to Rebecca and Hughson Streets and the Downtown Arts Centre studio space for a well-spent hour. Bandler owes a debt to the European film writers of the mid-20th century, a debt to the likes of Renoir, Godard, and even Hitchcock, in his tale of the seemingly inadvertent and random encounter. Cassie waits out a stormy Christmas Eve at the desk of her tacky room-by-the-hour motel and nary a customer in sight nor likely. Arrive Mick, stranded by the storm, the Jubilee motel the only haven in sight. “Julibee”, corrects Cassie. What, he asks? Julibee, not Jubilee. Whatever, reacts Mick, in that universal code for indifference. And so the first clue that everything may not be as it appears.

Let the story unfold then, but not in the traditional story-board scheme. Tension and suspense come and go at periodic intervals. Director Michael Anania paces his characters through a tortuous warren of truth and could-be quite deftly. He succeeds in creating the angst in the audience first, then moves it back and forth from characters to viewers, working Bandler’s script quite well, until we are all brought together in a revealing and curious denouement. His actors work with him, fielding the challenges with practised skill. While Duncan Thompson’s Mick gropes through pain both physical and mental with convincing realism (he has a sense of the reality of behaviour, does Thompson), its Monica Cairney’s grasp of the sub-text of her Cassie that drives the dangerous battle of wits and needs here. She’s one fine actor, with a surprising depth of creative resources.

What a bigger budget would do for this play! Costumes for starters. Mick needs more accessories, expensive watch and a ring, designer shoes… he’s filthy rich. Cassie, while appropriately down-at-heel, has ample physical charms that need to play a more convincing role in the scheme of things. Slacks? Well, a thought or two about that as this play moves on, perhaps. But remember, this is the Fringe, theatre on the edge! Don’t be frightened, get out and see for yourselves.

Tom Mackan