We Were Almost Entirely Happy Review

There are ménage a trios and then there are literary threesomes. Smiljana Glisovic’s writerly drill down into the poetic and personal lives of Canadian writer Elizabeth Smart and English poet George Barker is both a feast of words and akin to flicking through an old photo album.

We Were Almost Entirely Happy is episodic, nostalgic and impressionistic. Confined by the intimacy of the venue, it nonetheless breaks the bounds of its tight quarters and has an expansive, liberated air. Smart and Barker are lovers cut from the cloth of mid-20th century literary bohemia, defying social and artistic convention to create a life and a catalogue of highly regarded work, most notably Smart’s 1945 book By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept.

If at times this play is bit florid, it’s also delightfully wordy, with language borrowed and stolen from its two protagonists, giving the play its intellectual spine and letting actors Glisovic and Stuart Duffield off the leash so that, far from being a detailed, naturalistic study, We Were Almost... is an emotionally and philosophically playful piece. Sometimes sexy, at others funny, it resembles a literary mosaic. 

Together, Smiljana Glisovic and director Caitlin Dullard have crafted a very surprising and likeable piece of theatre.

3.5 Stars

La Mama to 14 Sep