Review: Lemon Tree On Dreg Street is a glorious breath of fresh air
Written by Amy May Nunn, directed by Miranda Middleton
Review by Clare Rankine
Amy May Nunn tells a poignant story in Lemon Tree on Dreg Street; a new Cloudstreet for the millennial generation, and a much-needed new Australian play about the perils of gentrification.
Twiglet (Ayesha Harris-Westman) and Boots (Hayley Edwards) are the last vestiges of their once vibrant neighbourhood on Dreg Street, now reduced to ugly glass apartments. Pink Lightning, a young Mum, opens up her home to whoever needs one. Possum Lady (Michelle Perera) wandered in one day and never left, pitching her tent on Twiglet and Boots’ lawn. Housemate Harley Blue Eyes (Alex Donnelly) sits on the balcony, humming along on his harmonica to the night's song.
Twiglet and Boots lark around, dreaming and smoking rollies out the front. Everyone is welcome at 104 Dreg Street, whether they need a bed, a cuppa, or a ciggie. The extraordinary Milo Hartill plays a revolving cast of characters: a neighbour hanging cryptic messages on her clothesline, Boots’ Mum roaring past once a week chucking meds out the window and Cowgirl, a wedding officiant who hates honey and loves cows. This is a familiar suburb complete with charming, crumbly houses covered in ivy, lopsided swing sets, and a lounge chair worse for wear, cleverly built and maintained through a sparkling ensemble cast and a brilliant script.
Set and costume designer Casey Harper-Wood creates a Play School-like stage with a cardboard cut-out house and blue and white paper strips fluttering over the door. Possum Lady wears a leather vest stitched with blue fur, and Vulture the developer’s bottle green suit is winged with bright mottled feathers. Upside-down milk crates glow like jewels scattered over a ramshackle green brown lawn. The silent star of the show, The Lemon Tree, sparkles with cardboard leaves, strung with fairy lights, tin cans, and lemons (both real and balloon form). At her base sits a shrine to Twiglet’s mum Pink Lightning, the matriarch of the neighbourhood, now long gone. Today, we’re invited to Dreg Street for a wedding and a last hurrah: Possum Lady is marrying The Lemon Tree before Boots leaves for Stonehenge, Twiglet figures out her next dream and the Vulture finds his next property to devour.
The absurdity of the premise in Lemon Tree on Dreg Street quickly turns into joy. Amy May Nunn’s writing and Miranda Middleton’s direction involve us from the beginning. We watch as Possum Lady invites us to her wedding ritual of covering Lemon Tree in honey so she glows. We get to blow bubbles hidden under our seats as Possum Lady and Lemon Tree are married, and some of us are even invited on stage to sit on upturned crates to watch the proceedings. Sound design by Oliver Beard and lighting design by Aron Murray create warm moments with glittering lullabies of bird songs and cricket hums over soft hues. Sweet moments like illuminating a love-struck Twiglet sighing over the gorgeous Cowgirl elicit laughter from the audience.
Even though the circumstances, characters and setting often push into ridiculousness, this is still an inherently human play. Although he towers in David Bowie-inspired boots and will eventually ruin Dreg Street’s oasis, Donnelly’s Vulture has an intrinsic softness. Although she’s in love with a tree, Perera’s Possum is heartbreakingly earnest. A peaceful moment between Boots helping Cowgirl breathe through a paper bag in a honey-related panic attack gets even sweeter when Cowgirl has to pass the bag back to Boots, who suddenly realises they don’t quite know where Stonehenge is. The magic may be outlandish, but the emotional depth is oh-so-real.
Because of all this emotional magic, it's a shock when Lemon Tree is ultimately destroyed by a contractor with a power saw. Lemon Tree, more than just strips of fabric and fairy light, is wrapped in ritual and history and becomes a metaphor for home. I saw tears fall into laps throughout the audience – and yet it’s here the play has a singular fault. We speed too fast away from our tearful moment as Twiglet immediately reads a poem for Possum Lady's now-lost love.
Near the end of the play, Twiglet and Boots sleep soundly on the lawn after a big day, childlike in their serenity. Then, Harley Blue Eyes flip-flops in on his Havaianas heralding an epilogue. Slowly all our characters wander in, back to their oasis on borrowed time. They, like all of us, are headed towards difficulty, they’ll experience further loss, and things won’t work out. In pretending to be tough, they show how frightened and grubby they are. But I can’t help but think they’ll be OK, no matter where they are, as long as they’re all together, making up their new dream. Full of love, familiarity and magic, Lemon Tree On Dreg Street is fresh air breathed into a theatre scene that continues to show us upper-class biopic or recycled Shakespeare over and over. It has room to be a cult favourite, with an approachable, sweet, joyful, silly, sad and glorious message: “hey look at this life, important to a time, and a place, and a person”.
Lemon Tree on Dreg Street plays at Theatre Works until 4 February. Find tickets here.
Collage by Ceridwen Bush, production images by Jack Dixon-Gunn
Clare Rankine loves cry laughing at high octane comedy and her cat, Crumpet. She’s also a comedy writer, producer and performer with a sick website that has a sparkle emoji cursor you can find here.
We paid Clare $25 for this review.
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