A TRIP TO SYDNEY TO SEE ‘SUNDAY’
My mother, Jean Langley, with John and Sunday Reed in 1973.
John and Sunday Reed were my parents close friends so naturally I was very interested in seeing the Melbourne Theatre Company’s ‘Sunday’, but once wasn’t enough.
Walking towards the Opera House on a warm Wednesday evening. The air is still, the glistening lights of the tall, tall buildings framing Circular Quay create beautiful glistening squiggly lines in the black, black waters of the harbour. Bars and restaurants are full to overflowing, people stroll leisurely along the promenade, and a few Seagull Dogs with their handlers wander through the crowd. Seagull Dogs. What a novel, yet obvious, answer to the problem of scavenging birds annoying both tourists and locals. Presumably the dogs didn’t need much training to scare away pesky seagulls but it probably required a bit more discipline to stop the Labradors from snaffling the chips the gulls leave on the ground. Louise and I were there to see the Sydney Theatre’s production of ‘Sunday; A Fantasy of Life at Heide’. We were early, so we found a couple of seats in the alfresco area of a bar to sit and drink our pre-show glasses of Prosecco in the balmy night air.
I’d seen the play not long after it opened in Melbourne, but taking in so much dialogue in one sitting is difficult, if not impossible. I needed a second viewing to see where I thought the ‘fantasy’ deviated from what is known about the Reeds and their relationship with Sidney Nolan. When I first saw Nikki Shiels (who played Sunday) on stage, wearing a simple cream shirt tucked into baggy trousers, with a thin pale blue ribbon keeping the hair off her face, a tear or two rolled down my cheek; the look was very much Sun, and the pale blue ribbon tradition continued long after the hair being held back turned silver. Apart from that, I hardly recognized the actors on stage as Sun and John. I was twenty-seven when they died so my strongest memories of them are as much older, quietly dignified people but I’ve read ‘Modern Love; The Lives of John and Sunday Reed’ by Kendra Morgan and Leslie Harding so I know Sun wasn’t always the unassuming, softly spoken, gentle woman that my mother knew. Nolan was the last of Sunday’s lovers, and the pain of his leaving left her devastated, fragile and sad. She was no longer the tempestuous woman prone to emotional extremes.
I can’t be sure, but I thought some of the dialogue was slightly different to what I remember from the Melbourne production. There seemed to be more lines involving crudity and suggestions of snobbery intended to get laughs from the audience. Unlike some of the people around them, Sun and John rarely resorted to swear words. I very much doubt Sun would’ve ever used the scatological humour that her character did in the play, and the Reeds tried hard to avoid the class snobbery inherent in their backgrounds because they disapproved of it intellectually. But there was one change of which I was certain. In the Melbourne production there was a fully nude bath scene that wasn’t in the Sydney one, and that’s not the sort of thing I’d forget. I’m curious as to why it was changed to the actor wearing a dressing gown.
The play was long but not boring, and if I hadn’t known the Reeds and their story I would’ve found it interesting, with its clever, pithy dialogue and excellent performances from the actors. But people seeing the show might be under the impression that Heide was a place of sheer indulgence and it was far from that. Life at Heide was surprisingly disciplined. From the moment the Reeds bought the large, virtually treeless property, a lot of hard work was required to make the gardens needed to grow vegetables for the household and the planting hundreds of trees and thousands of bulbs to create carpets of flowers in Spring. Friends often helped Sun and John but it was always to work alongside them. Days were for work, most evenings were for dinner followed by discussions over Whisky and cigarettes. Parties happened occasionally, but according to what I’ve read, were usually held across the road from Heide in the shed where my father lived.
The real story of the now famous ménage a trois is far more interesting and complex than could be squeezed into a two-and-a-half hour play. Over the years, Nolan came and went from Heide and during one of his absences Sunday took another lover, Michael Keon. Nolan had other lovers, and John Reed had an affair with Moya Dyring before she went to Europe to reconnect with her ex-boyfriend, Sam Atyeo, who was also one of Sun’s ex-lovers. Apparently Sun and Joy had a brief sexual dalliance but it was probably more experimental than serious. This was long before the permissive 1970’s when the idea of sexual liberation and experimentation became almost mandatory, as it was among my group of friends, although none of us were married at the time, nor did we believe in that particular institution. Almost fifty years later, some of us still don’t.
Although titillating, the sex lives of the Heide circle is nowhere near as interesting as the ideas, the art, and the complex personalities of the people involved. I don’t think the play conveyed that very well, but I admit it was probably an impossible task.
Was Sunday Reed a selfish, spoilt, capricious woman who indulged in ‘tiresome and attention- seeking histrionics’ as my father once said? At times she could be.
Was Sunday Reed a sensitive, intelligent, generous, gentle woman who could be exceptionally patient, and was a devoted wife for most of her married life? Yes, she certainly was.
No doubt we are all paradoxical to some degree. I’d say Sunday was above average in that regard.
I feel closer now to understanding the incredible patience Sun displayed when faced with my mother’s emotional fragility, her angry irrational responses to a perceived personal slight, and her intense need for undying, passionate, unrealistic love. For Sun, it must have felt a little as if she were looking in a mirror and seeing a part of herself that she now had under control.
