Old Wife's Tale

Some years ago Lally Katz approached Robyn Nevin and said she'd like to write her a role and asked what sort of character Robyn would like to play. She replied, “Tough and funny.” Katz tells how her relationship with her 80-year-old neighbour Ana eventually became the play Neighbourhood Watch: “I first met Ana when we were living across the street from each other in Kew. She called me over to her gate. She was barely higher than the white picket fence she was standing behind. She was dressed head to toe in maroon and her hair was piled on top of her head. She started telling me about her life, about World War Two in Hungary and straightaway I was transfixed. I knew that she'd be the character I wrote for Robyn. I spent the next two years with her every day. She became one of my closest friends. Everything she said fascinated me.”

Robyn Nevin has been much praised for her portrayal of Ana, both at Belvoir Theatre where the play premiered in 2011 and during the current MTC season. “To me,” Lally explains, “she contained everything that a great character and a great story should have – the epic and the ordinary. But her ordinary was hilarious and dramatic. I got to know the past through her eyes and also current Melbourne. I also got to see the world of the elderly, which had been somewhat invisible to me before.”

I ask Lally what she learnt from Ana. “I learnt to 'never run after the man or the tram'.  I learnt, 'First jump, then say hop.' I learnt that everyone is a potential serial killer trying to kill me. And most of all, she taught me to value myself. 'Know your value. You got the very good value.' Also to never wear dark blue – 'For you, it is the suicide.' And not to cut my hair short – 'You looks like chook on the egg!'”

Ana went along to see the show during the Belvoir season, sitting next to Lally. “She loved it. She talked all through it, sometimes agreeing with what she said 'Ja. True. Ana say that. I all the time call you the baby horse.' Sometimes debating it – 'Lying. Ana lying. Never happen. I never do this!' She was very proud of it, but also considered suing me for a week. Mainly because it was insinuated that she made love to a soldier out of wedlock. And fair enough – we did exaggerate it for dramatic purposes!

“To be honest, there is always at least 50 per cent of me watching myself and watching the people that I'm with and looking for the story and the characters. Stuff in my own life has always been a big part of my work – stuff that I have a lot of emotions and thoughts about – like relationships and love. I often meet people and I feel the atmosphere change and I think, 'You.' And then I know that they're going to be the next character I get obsessed with. That definitely happened with Ana.”