Brisbane review - Spirited Seniors Brace Defiantly Before the Unknown

By Lilian Harrington

Production:  Do Not Go Gentle

Writer:          Patricia Cornelius

Company:     Queensland Theatre Co.

Location:       Bille Browne Theatre, 78 Montague Rd. South Brisbane.

Season:         August 11- 30   7: 30 pm Evgs. and 2 pm Mat.

Bookings:      QTIX 136246 /tickets and reception 1800 355 628

Have you ever considered what it’s like for your elders, or what life will be like for yourself, as you move closer to the unknown years, when you become less able to live the way you have always known, or battle with those hidden health problems that creep in as you move towards the end of life?  This journey can be likened to Robert Scott’s ill-fated expedition to Antarctica with his four friends. “Do Not Go Gentle” is an award-winning Australian play, written by established playwright Patricia Cornelius, which debuts with a stellar cast, at Queensland Theatre Company this August, as part of the 2026 program.

This play is sensitively crafted, and it addresses some of the issues that come with ageing, such as, the onset of dementia, loss, grief, dreams, relationships, and the end of life. Cornelius referenced the adventures of the intrepid Captain Robert Falcon Scott, in 1911, who led a group of ill-fated explorers to the then unknown South Pole, as a metaphor for an ageing group of demented seniors, who are finding their way through a foggy period in their lives while living in aged care. Her focus is on the mindset of this group of seniors, who all suffer from forms of dementia as they imagine themselves part of Scott’s team, traversing the icy depths, into the unknown and slowly paving their way through a course of shifting events of memory and time. Their twilight years are transformed into a journey of extraordinary courage, and beauty, while their human spirit still glows with a fierce resilience.

Directed by the very accomplished Heather Fairbairn, the production has a luminaire cast of Australian actors, well-known for their stage and screen experience. They include: Andrew Buchannan, Jennifer Flowers, Steven Grives, Christen O’Leary, Bruce Spence and William Zappa. All play multiple, very spirited roles and they handled the lengthy dialogue fluently, along with the 89- year- old opera singer Marilyn Richardson, who had sung the role previously at Belvoir St. Theatre, Sydney. (2023.)

Bruce Spence who plays (Oates, Titus and Soldier) noted “the play captures simple folk at the end of their lives seeking to do something monumental” These characters have “Dementia, constipation, arthritis, impending death” … but they choose adventure to “fight the dying of the light” Andrew Buchannan, playing (Man /Beast, Peter, Alex) noted “Time teaches you that life cannot be controlled. It demands you be courageous, honest, and open”. …. “We all will march on to the unknown. Get your bearings and pack a compass.”   Jennifer Flowers (Wilson /Mary) showed truth, honesty, and belief, through humor, resilience and grace.

Working together to create a liminal world, director Heather Fairbairn and production designer Simone Romaniuk, have created a very minimalistic and abstract scene/space that incorporates the incredible vastness of the Antarctic plateau suggestive of the icy, uncertain, environment, as well as a combination of: memory, imagination, and lived experience. By using white gauze, mirrors, and mobile steel poles, the space created reflects what is real and that which exists only in the mind; scene changes are fluidly made on the poles between places and moments, so the two physical and emotional landscapes exist simultaneously, showing the oscillating world between the fantastical and the pedestrian, and depicting man’s mindset, his perseverance and defiance going forward into the unknown.