Theatrical Charity
21
January 2009
A highlight of this year’s Mardi Gras Festival will also
benefit a worthy cause, actors Joy Smithers and Andrew McFarlane tell
Peter Hackney.
When Australian screen and stage veteran Joy Smithers
caught up with SX in June last year, she was promoting a charity with
which she is heavily involved: Hope for Cambodian Children, a facility
for HIV-positive orphans in Cambodia’s Battambang province,
established by Midnight Shift owner and former AIDS Trust of Australia
governor, Tim Berry.
Fast forward to today and Smithers is again appealing to the community
to support the project – but this time with a twist. On Friday,
February 20, Sydneysiders can assist just by having a great night out
at the theatre: Smithers has teamed up with fellow actor Andrew
McFarlane, director Zoe Carides and producer Mark Eldridge to present a
production of A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters at the Factory Theatre,
Enmore, as part of the 2009 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival.
All money raised will go directly to the Hope for Cambodian Children
Foundation.
“It’s a really worthwhile charity because we take the
people that nobody else wants,” Smithers tells SX. “We take
HIV-positive orphans, which a lot of Cambodian orphanages won’t
do; we take physically and mentally disabled children; we take babies
– a lot of the orphanages won’t do that because such
high-level care is required; and we have a lot of boys. Many people
won’t take boys because they can’t sell a boy into
prostitution.”
Smithers, best known for long-term stints on All Saints and Home and
Away, her role with Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton, and a raft of
stage productions, says that not only will theatregoers be supporting
the cause, but they’ll be treated to “a beautiful
story” too.
“Love Letters is about two people who write to
each other as pen friends over the course of a lifetime,” she
explains. “It follows them from childhood through to old age, and
it’s a very touching, very moving work. It’s romantic,
it’s tragic, it’s funny – it’s brilliant.”
McFarlane, Smithers’ love interest in the play, is equally enamoured of the production.
“It’s a beautiful piece,” he agrees.
“It’s unique in that it’s not performed as a normal
play. It’s two actors behind two separate desks and they
communicate with each other and to the audience by reading the letters
aloud. They’re either reading a letter they’ve received or
reading one they’re sending to the other.“You might think,
‘How will that work?’, but in actual fact it comes alive
emotionally and imaginatively in front of an audience.”
Like Smithers, McFarlane is pleased to be performing a work which
benefits Hope for Cambodian Children – and feels particular
resonance with the HIV/AIDS cause as a gay man who’s lost friends
to the disease.
The star of Australian dramas The Sullivans and The Flying Doctors,
soon to appear in the new series of Underbelly, recalls being in his
late twenties and early thirties when HIV/AIDS first struck these
shores.“Friends and acquaintances started getting infected or in
fact, dying ... In those early days it was so dramatic because people
had no idea what to do,” he recalls. “It’s satisfying
to be able to use my craft to help people affected by this
disease,” he muses.
Smithers adds that, as Australians, we have a moral duty to help people suffering on our doorstep in less fortunate countries.“I’ve spent many beautiful holidays over the years in Asia and I just think, ‘Come on, Australia! You can’t just go over there and enjoy their beaches, and the cheap airfares and food – you’ve gotta give something back! “I believe absolutely in my heart that it’s our responsibility to do something.”
Source: http://sxnews.e-p.net.au/feature/theatrical-charity-4798.html