Photo: Supplied.
It’s a given in community theatre that men are usually harder to cast than women, but director Raymond Noonan has successfully sourced first-class male talent for Theatre Redland’s current production, There Goes the Bride. While the title suggests a show redolent with tulle, maternal tears and super-efficient women, the men feature just as prominently in this script. In fact, they come close to running – and nearly ruining – the whole event.
Raymond has taken on the role of Gerald, the bride’s grandfather.
“Gerald is a master of misinterpretation,” Ray says. “He pulls strings and inadvertently tightens the whole tangled web of the wedding. I just have to be sure that I don’t carry some of Gerald into the director’s role!”
The play’s tangle starts when Timothy, the father of the bride, loses the plot and creates a new one closer to his heart’s desire. Actor Chad Sherrin is enjoying the experience.
“I like Timothy because he’s complex; when you’re living in two realities life is always interesting – and remembering the shifting script can be interesting too!”
Chad has a theatre history going back decades and has been performing and directing at the Redland Museum since the 1990s. A performance poet and a mine of information on Australian bush history, Chad is much in demand for his versatility and theatre experience.
Timothy’s business partner Bill, who slides from one reality to another as required, is brought to life by Michael Byrnes, a self-confessed lifelong theatre addict. As the eldest of eight children Michael was in charge of developing and presenting drawing room plays for his parents and younger siblings – complete with home-made magic lantern projections. He was involved in all his school plays and all his Teachers College plays as a student and went on, as a teacher, to set up and tutor drama groups at schools (some of them one-teacher schools), colleges and CQ University in Rockhampton.
Jim “The Voice” Gilbert, playing the father of the groom who just wants to escape the domestic scrum, was for years known to Redland listeners as a popular radio presenter, specialising in the arts and football. There was general disappointment when Jim decided to switch off the studio mic. but radio’s loss proved to be theatre’s gain; Jim is now established as one of Theatre Redland’s regular actors with a vocal range that reaches from BBC to ruffian. (He’s also made his mark as Santa’s Little Helper, Roger the Elf, in Theatre Redland’s annual Christmas plays.)
There Goes the Bride will play at Redland Museum Saturday 11 – Sunday 19 November; for bookings https://www.redlandmuseum.org.au/whats-on/events.
