“Mary Street. It is dawn. The dawn light is a sort of thin violet colour, similar to evening, but with the feeling of it rising.
The street is still and quiet, not quite woken up yet.”

We sit in silence as the world of Lally’s Katz’s play is wheeled out before us… garbage bins on wheels and the weekly routine that unites us all. Catherine is sitting on the wheelie bin waiting for the world to wake up… It’s a street full of familiar movements – barking dogs, snooty neighbours, gum leaves returned purposefully in a plastic bag. It’s the ordinary world made extraordinary, by virtue of placement on stage. A world privileged through notation. How often do we let these moments of the infinitely ordinary slip by unannounced and unceremoniously disappear into the past?

Initiated from a foyer conversation between Katz and Nevin over two years ago, the conversation broadened into a larger more complicated conversation. An offer from Katz’s neighbour to strike up a friendship, a conversation with Julian Meyrick, Annette Madden, Eamon Flack and Simon Stone.. and now a conversation beyond the rehearsal room walls – the audience.

To ensure you gather the full picture, there is a very interesting call and response style article here: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/double-act-20110707-1h32r.html

… which is, in and of itself an intriguing portrait of intergenerational respect and regard… asking some tough questions about the boys club of the theatre scene (yes, this is STILL an issue – and the proof is in WHO are the people developing, championing and directing the plays and programming choices)… questions about theatre… questions on the value of criticism…questions about motherhood… the personal and the professional collide…

And of course you can check out the reviews: John MacCallum gushes here: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/robyn-nevin-at-home-in-made-to-order-role/story-e6frg8n6-1226103708657

Mr Blake is similarly enthusiastic: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/broken-hungarian-is-a-rhapsody-in-the-key-of-nevin-20110728-1i28g.html

Even the bloggers adore it: Australian Stage: http://australianstage.com.au/201107284610/reviews/sydney/neighbourhood-watch-|-belvoir.html

Diana Simmonds: http://www.stagenoise.com/reviewsdisplay.php?id=558

And of course James Waites (my very own Ana) loved it, too. Enthusiastically reassuring me that it was more than a winner for me to take my new love-interest to (who is not a fan of text-based theatre in general) http://jameswaites.ilatech.org/?p=6822

Based on Katz’s intense and constant friendship with her neighbour Anna, the story is quite simple. In fact, there is everything to love about the script. We delight in recognising the familiar sounds, the curious turns of phrases, where we the audience are asked to make links to our own lives and reflect on what it means to find a friend, a guide, a mentor who chides and consoles – who shares without familial duty or familial expectation.
The world in Neighbourhood Watch is attractive and easy because it invites us, the audience in, asks us to watch the story in comfort and familiarity. It feels good. It feels like a relief to sit in the presence of a story which reminds us about living, loving, about connectedness, resilience, compassion – the nourishing ideas that are sometimes usurped for the flashy all-nude, beer-soaked rock and roll, design bludgeoned sets of the main stage Sydney Theatre scene. And though the play relies on the darling of the Sydney Theatre scene – after all it WAS written for her – and the reviews are all about Robyn Nevin – there is something audiences are (and will react to) in this play. A sense of adventure found in simple conversation? A desire to love and be loved? The idea of community, of home, of place, of belonging? Yes all of those things.

I find it curious though, that yet again I find that the script is three-quarters there. The story is enough, without the dead love interest (who seems dwarfed in importance by the love between Kitty Kitty and Ana), the lessons are clear and perfect without it having the pressure of a death involved… the stories are enough without a re-enactment of wartime Europe… the climax is fairly predictable and far too neat, too glib, too easy…

With so much realism in this play (except for the design), it is difficult to know why the end is so unnaturally hurried, so unrealistically tidy. Infact I think the strangest thing of all is that there is nothing we are left questioning, there is nothing to be discussed philosophically or logistically in the car ride on the way home. And I wonder about that.

As a huge fan of Lally’s writing (yes I played a decapitated head in a musical of hers years ago) – I love it because it is bold and unexpected. I love it because of the wild imagination, the insatiable ten thousand miles a minute thought process. I adore all the infinite and bizarre possibilities that Lally opens up in her writing. The painful awkward embarassments, the true-life horror. The unexpected. Neighbourhood Watch is not the usual Katz fare… perhaps it’s the responsibility of writing for one of Australia’s most incredible actors – or perhaps the dramaturgical advice? But this is a departure from the sassy, wild and ridiculous pain that we are usually subjected to and instead we are served a calm, comfortable love letter to friendship.

Though this is clearly a play about Kitty-kitty’s healing – Ana is the focus of the show. The reviews attest to that – and though this production is drenched in Robyn Nevin awe – it is Megan Holloway’s Catherine who is the centre of the story… and for me she is perfectly understated, utterly average and normal – unglamorous and yet sweetly curious.

All performances are beautiful – as one would expect – this is the finest cast in Sydney (yes Megan Holloway was on my January list of who to watch for 2011… and let’s not deny that Garber has been given his own adjective by Blake “Garberesque.” Simon Stone’s second outing of a revolve in the Belvoir Space works beautifully on this occasion… and there is a simplicity which puts the performances and the writing first.

As it should be.

Some dramaturgical lumps and bumps aside, and a stylistic departure for Katz, this is all in all, a good show. A charming show. Full of wisdom and wit and fine performances, worthy of an audience who can bring their love of the everyday with them to their seats.