Katz’s year in the spotlight
FOR playwright Lally Katz, last week’s premiere of Return to Earth marks her fourth play staged in Melbourne and Sydney this year.
The Melbourne Theatre Company’s (MTC’s) production of Return to Earth is a bittersweet comedy about a young woman who returns home to a sleepy seaside town after travelling the world and finds it surprisingly unfamiliar.
The play stars Julie Forsyth, Kim Gyngell and Eloise Mignon, and it is partly based on an autobiographical story that Katz wrote in 2005 about the coastal NSW town of Tathra, where her parents now live.
“It’s a comedy with some tragic elements to it,” explained Katz. “It’s a homecoming story about a person who returns home after seeing the world afresh. It definitely has elements of my family and my personality in the story, although this is less real than my other plays.”
Katz was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1978, and her family moved to Canberra when she was a teenager for her father’s work. While her father is Jewish, descended from Russian Jews who fled the pogroms around the turn of the 20th century, her mother is not Jewish.
“My Jewish heritage is strong and I have started learning more about Judaism in recent years,” she said.
Katz is currently developing a new play involving her father.
“It’s good that he is seeing Return to Earth so that he can get used to being depicted on stage.”
Katz’s whirlwind year began in June with the Melbourne premiere of A Golem Story at the Malthouse, followed by Neighbourhood Watch, starring Robyn Nevin, at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney in July, and then a revival of Smashed at the Griffin Theatre, also in Sydney.
But Katz will not be resting on her laurels after the MTC play completes its season.
“I have a whole bunch of scripts to look at. I have not written a lot of new material this year, so I will be happy to write more,” she said.
Next year will be much quieter on the stage with only one production planned – a kids’ play titled Star Chaser.
Return to Earth is at the Fairfax Studio, Victorian Arts Centre until December 17.
REPORT by Danny Gocs
PICTURED: playwright Lally Katz
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