Those of you who loved Gold Logie Award-winning Australian actor John Wood as Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon in Blue Heelers, you will be fascinated to watch him transform into Monk O’Neill, one of the great comic creations of Australian dramatic literature.
In A Stretch of the Imagination Monk’s colourful, rambling monologue cuts to the core of what Australia once was and what one day it could become. The resilient ironies of the play will not be lost on today’s generation.
The Sydney Morning Herald had this to say about the play, currently showing at The Q Performing Arts Centre in Queanbeyan: “No sooner had Stretch premiered than it was deemed an Australian classic, for good reason. It was bold and absurd, it spoke about and to Australians, it boisterously let rip with the vernacular, and gave its actor the chance to show his mettle.”
From his corrugated iron bush hut atop One Tree Hill, we are invited to spend an entertaining day with the irascible Monk O’Neill, bush philosopher, yarn spinner, epic lover, mate, heroic battler and individualist, sardonic iconoclast, sportsman, cultured man-of-letters and bon-vivant – as he acts out his memories and fantasies while heroically fighting against his own physical decline and the depredations of his environment.
“Jack Hibberd’s Australian classic is a gift to Wood’s comic sensibilities and acting prowess. The audience is putty in his hands as he creaks and flits around the stage, his handsome girth put to repugnant good use. Monk O’Neill’s irascibility is tragic rather than terrifying in Wood’s wonderfully droll portrayal, eliciting sympathy that Monk doesn’t always get. “ The Advertiser
‘Stretch’ is at ‘The Q’ until 9 May. ** It is important to note that this play has an MA rating. Bookings at ‘The Q’ Box Office phone 62980290
