THE ARTS/THEATER	JANUARY 26, 1998 NO. 4
	Home Truths A sprawling, comic saga of love, loss and belonging By SUSAN HORSBURGH ive hours in a tin shed during a steamy Sydney summer might not seem an appealing prospect. Nor a play about two working-class families coping with life's disappointments in post-war Perth. Yet Cloudstreet, Company B Belvoir/Black Swan Theatre's production of the Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Tim Winton, is ultimately an uplifting experience. The laconic spirit of Winton's prose is given full rein by writers Nick Enright and Justin Monjo. Dolly Pickles (Kris McQuade)--a "spud-peeler with a fag on her tongue" who ruts an American soldier while her husband has four fingers ripped off in a winching accident--calls lady luck a "rotten slut." Sam Pickles (Max Cullen), a hopeless gambler, prefers to think of her as a "shifty shadow." Either way, it's fate that shapes the lives of the Pickles and the Lambs, who share a haunted, ramshackle house on Cloud Street. The message is simple: family is the one true constant in life; the strong carry the weak, and the faults and foibles of loved ones are accepted. What's important is a sense of place and belonging--comforts denied to the abused Aboriginal girls whose ghosts linger in the house. While some of the novel's emotional intimacy is lost in the vast, sweaty space of a dockside container shed, director Neil Armfield uses raw theatrical devices, such as shadow play on calico curtains, and Sydney Harbour itself, to create a powerful, epic show. His 14 actors bring to life funny, flawed Australians fighting the "war" that is everyday life. Oriel Lamb (Judi Farr) says of her children: "You can't help but worry for them, love them, want for them." Cloudstreet makes the audience feel the same way about its characters--and that's why this theatrical marathon is worth every minute.
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