Honour

Men are only as faithful as their options, as comedian Chris Rock observed and Tiger Woods demonstrated. Add Montaigne's dictum that marriage is a contract where only the entry is free, and we have the opposing forces of this superb exploration of the tension between righteousness and licentiousness, the choice of good enough against gotta go, the battle of just versus lust.

Joanna Murray-Smith's Honour premiered in Melbourne in 1995 and has had successful runs on Broadway, in the West End and around the globe; this version, beautifully directed by Lee Lewis, will have Sydney audiences wondering why Sin City was made to wait so long.

George (William Zappa) leaves his wife Honor (Wendy Hughes) for Claudia (Paula Arundell), some 30 years younger ("She's history-free, cellulite-free"). Fearlessly taking on a premise that perilously teeters just one bungled line away from tabloid cliché, the masterly Murray-Smith examines George's upgrade attempt from each character's point of view, always with a fresh imagination, shimmering wit and emotional honesty.
 
These three highly articulate characters are well played, but the emotional high water mark is left by a terrifyingly real Yael Stone as their daughter Sophie, whose flustered outpouring of grief for her mother and disappointment with her father is surely one of the year's most moving performances, even without the qualification that it is in a supporting part.

The majestic set in this loungeroom drama has (mercifully) no cocktail cabinet; in fact there's no furniture or props whatsoever. It is a graceful, architectural wooden cage, as abstract as a theological argument, designed by Michael Scott-Mitchell and beautifully lit by Damien Cooper with shifting grids of rectilinear shadows. Within this cage we witness the laboratory dissection of a love rat. It's hard not to smile as we watch him squirm.

This magnificent production is required viewing for anyone who has ever committed adultery or is considering doing so in the future. Jason Catlett

Wendy Hughes laughs when she recalls her part in Australia's great cinema revival of the 1970s and 80s. "It was fabulous. We'd make a couple of hundred movies a year and we took it all for granted. I think we did some terrific stuff. A lot of crap as well! I was a lot younger too, so I could run across the sand, naked."

She's talking about a notorious scene in Petersen (1974) where she and Jack Thompson, as a university lecturer and the ocker student who has seduced her, go the full monty while sprinting across a beach. Screen nudity was de rigueur in the 70s and Melbourne-raised Hughes, with her glamorous looks and refined diction, came to signify an aristocratic kind of screen sexuality - both arse and class.

The star of classics including Newsfront and My First Wife, she won the AFI best actress award playing a Depression-era socialite in Careful, He Might Hear You (1983). A television staple, she worked in Los Angeles for three years in the 90s and was still turning heads by the time she played Mrs Robinson in the Melbourne stage version of The Graduate in 2001.

Now 58, and starring in the Sydney Theatre Company's Honour, her steely beauty remains intact. It's hard to imagine her as the sinned-against partner in any love triangle, but delicious to think how she might cut a wayward husband down to size.

Written in 1995, Honour is Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith's tart dissection of an age-old phenomenon. Honor (Hughes), a once-promising poet, has dedicated herself to famous husband George (William Zappa) for 32 years. Then an attractive young reporter, Claudia (Paula Arundell), interviews George and dazzles him. In a devastating scene, George announces to Honor that he's leaving her.

"The situation confronts Honor with why she has taken a backseat to her husband's career," Hughes says. "It's only through the break-up that she finds her voice again, to see if she has some talent left. She's very witty, acerbic, and it's terrific how she deals with this great loss in her life."

Directed by Lee Lewis (That Face), Honour marks Hughes's return to the STC stage for the first time since David Williamson's Amigos in 2004. She has made her mark there in shows from Oedipus to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. "That was 27 years ago!' she exclaims. "Time just keeps marching on."

Since its Melbourne premiere Honour has been staged in two dozen countries, including on Broadway and the West End, and it's clear why. Murray-Smith's dialogue cuts to the heart of midlife crisis and betrayal. As Hughes' character notes: "At a certain age men don't necessarily enjoy fucking, but they like to be seen to be fucking." Honor's contention that love isn't a thunderbolt but gradual and "incremental" comes unstuck, but in its place arrives empowerment.

"It's a subject that's universal, that's what I love about the play, but I also love its structure and the language," Hughes says. "It's very rich in rhythm."

Hughes herself has been married twice - to actors Sean Scully and Chris Haywood and producer/restaurateur Patric Juillet. "I haven't been married for a very long time," she says. "And that's all we're going to say about that." Nick Dent