Family fuss

My family and Other Animals (Villanova Players)

Ron Hurley Theatre

August 25 – September 3

By its title alone, Gerald Durrell’s “My Family and Other Animals” suggests a story of much comedy. The number of chairs and accompanying suitcases on stage for the opening scene of Villanova Player’s production also suggests that it is a story of many characters, which is realised from the moment that members of the eccentric Durrell family of widowed mother Louisa (Amy Bent), writer and eldest son Larry (Daniel Buckley), gun-mad Leslie (Nikolai Stewart), diet-obsessed sister Margo (Michaela Gallagher), Roger the dog (Jack Walters) and narrator Gerald begin their journey from dreary England the sun-soaked Greek island of Corfu. 

Right from the start it is also obviously a story of its time, including its characters’ entitled requests of servant staff upon initial arrival and ensuring culture-shock, which unfolds complete with the flamboyance of easy ethic stereotypes. The 1956 story is an exaggerated one in its autobiographical recount of five years of the British naturalist’s childhood. While it starts with Larry, it is really Gerald’s story, told reflectively from an adult Gerald (Nathan Seng) from mostly side-of-stage narration, while enacted by the initially 10-year-old maths loving boy of his youth (Oliver Walters).

As we are taken through the story’s three distinct sections, marking the three villas in which the family lived on the island, Durrell’s writing is engaging in its descriptive evocation through figurative language. On-stage, meanwhile, there is a lot happening throughout the show, including move on and off of props and especially through the inclusion of puppets of pets and accompanying puppeteers as Gerald interacts with the island’s residents, flora and exotic fauna (which ignites his life-long fascination with the animal kingdom), undertakes a memorable birthday boat trip and attends the party that marks the beginning of the end and his transformation from boyhood.

With over a dozen performers on stage at times, there is always offer of multiple places to look, however, differing levels of voice projection mean not all lines of the script as equally accessible. Bent is excellent as the family’s frazzled single mother, trying to hold it all together amongst the chaos and keep conversations appropriate in language and tone. Buckley is a confident know-it-all Larry, intelligent in his quote of Marlowe and drolly articulate in his negativity. Gallagher is also impressive as Margo, decisive in her incorrect proverbial declarations, and ensemble member Samuel Connolly gives a committed performance in a range of roles, from a braying donkey to Margot’s self-important Turkish suitor and an asthmatic artist Michael, amongst others.

Unfortunately, there is no real conflict to drive a plot, rather just a series of fussy chaotic events and often repeated visual jokes at the expense of characterisation. Devices are used to keep the audience engaged, such as when a cinema date scene (with Margo’s mum along as chaperone) occurs in the stalls, and in a lively but lengthy Zorba’s dance number that doesn’t contribute a lot narratively, however, these do little to smooth the play’s many threads together. Indeed, while Durrell’s “My Family and Other Animals” may have merit as a memoir, this doesn’t necessarily translate to dramatic form. At over 2.5 hours (including interval), it is long in its procession of the like-themed events in the circus on the family’s day-to-day life experiences on the island, yet it is still full of funny moments which make for easy viewing and the biggest Sunday matinee crowd I have seen at a Villanova Players show appears to agree.