Are You There? is a new play by Irene Koresten currently running at the Explosives Factory in St Kilda – a dark comedy that hits with both laughter and heartache.
Walking into Explosives Factory feels like slipping into a tucked-away world in St Kilda. A narrow laneway entrance up flight of stairs takes you inside where you’re suddenly in the foyer of Autumn Dale Village: a small, intimate space where three women carry the weight of lives lived. And you’re a fly on the wall.
Melanie Madrigali commands the stage as Pia, the ‘Director of First Impressions’. It’s Friday, and she’s battling spreadsheets, phone calls, staff calling in sick, complaints and shifting emotional ground as her own personal world teeters.
She’s trying to herd the chaos of aged-care management amid strained relations with her ex-husband, and her teenage daughter is absent from school. It’s both funny and frantic, and Madrigali holds it together with a fierce but brittle energy.
The other two characters are residents of Autumn Dale – Lauren, who has advanced dementia and Colleen who is younger and heavily involved in the activities and comings and goings at the nursing home.
Jane Clifton’s Colleen is a marvel is seventy-odd and still speaking to the presence of her late mother. Her monologues are sharp, delirious, with humour that draws from grief’s edges. Rosemary Johns plays Lauren – a near-quiet presence on the stage reduced to a single repeating question: “Are you there?” – and yet it’s that quiet that spills over and lingers in your mind long after.
Writer Irene Korsten drew upon her own days in aged care to write something that sees beyond the clichés. This isn’t saccharine or grim. It’s a realistic and often humorous portrayal of the realities of life in an aged care setting that many of have seen up close as our loved ones enter care. And one that many of us will probably experience first-hand for ourselves in the future.
Director Rachel Baring has staged the play in a way that makes you feel you’re an outsider observing moments of humanity, comedy, despair, and levity. The tension builds not from spectacle, but from truth.
At 80 minutes, the pace feels just right. The writing crackles and the performances spark. Are You There is playing at the Explosives Factory in Inkerman Street St Kilda until 13 September. Tickets on sale now.
