The Ham Funeral - Griffin Theatre Company

Overview

Though the world is obviously crying out for a play about a mausoleum brimming with leftover Christmas meat or a family grieving the death of a terrible actor, Australia's only Nobel laureate for literature did not see fit to furnish us with such a literally-titled masterpiece. It doesn't make the final product any less weird, though.

Written in 1948, White's work traces the story of a young poet and the increasingly odd relationship he shares with his landlady, Mrs. Lusty after her husband dies suddenly. The result is a spirited, if unsettling pursuit of a young man by a grief-stricken, libidinous retiree, through a lavish post-funeral feast.

The play was apparently inspired by a painting called The Dead Landlord, which William Dobell painted shortly after helping his own landlady heft her husband's corpse onto a bed. Infamously rejected by the Adelaide Festival in 1962, Griffin theatre and director and producer Kate Gaul have no such qualms.