Theatrical charity

SX News, Australia

Written by Peter Hackney

Wednesday, 21 January

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.”