Saturn's Return

I wanted to love it. I wanted to feel touched, inspired, understood. Instead I sat, eyes fixed on the stage with a perpetually furrowed brow, cringing at the wackiness. To think it started off so well.

Last night I went with a bunch of girlfriends – our ages ranging from 25 to 28 – to see The Sydney Theatre Company’s return season of David Berthold’s production of Saturn’s Return, a play by Tommy Murphy. A play about the astrological phenomenon that takes place every 27-30 years in a person’s life, coinciding with the time it takes the planet Saturn to make one orbit around the sun.

For gen X and Y-ers this ‘return’ in their late 20s can cause havoc to their lives. Some pass the threshold ultimately more assured, while others struggle against the reality of transitioning from youth into adulthood. I get it. I see it in my friends and I can feel the stars aligning for my own journey to the ‘other side’ but I just don’t think Murphy’s play really nailed it.

The story focuses on a young couple, Matt and Zara, who have been together for 7 years. They live together and are content with their own unique take on love and commitment (two years ago they had a threesome with one of Matt’s footy mates… as the play opens they’re planning another, maybe with a girl from Zara’s yoga class). Then Matt tells Zara he loves her and… she hesitates. So marks the end of ‘reality’ and the play spirals into a world of character-changes and make believe. Zara steals a baby, but maybe it was just a doll, and then an old boyfriend pays a visit only to turn into the couple’s child and get taken away by aliens dressed in cardboard, while Zara and Matt are stuck to the wall and floor, respectively. Fuck. It’s not just me, is it? That’s absurd.

Out of the seven of us, one thought she could relate to the feeling of being stuck as Berthold depicted it. The rest of us were still struggling to come to terms with the abrupt ending, and I couldn’t get over the baby – or was it a doll?

There’s lots of semi-nudity, course language and a higher boy ratio to girl (well, there’s three actors: 1 girl, 2 boys)… so it should have been enjoyable to one Boyfriend-deprived, as me. But I was left unfulfilled.

Maybe I’ll ‘get it’ in a few years time.

Saturn’s Return

A play by Tommy Murphy

Director David Berthold

With Toby Moore, Leeanna Walsman, Matthew Zeremes

The Sydney Theatre Company, Pier 4, Hickson Road Walsh Bay NSW 2000

Tel: 02 0250 1700

Note top pic: The cast of Saturn's Return thanks to SMH