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Clip description
The rehearsals have gone underground, after the hospital administrator, Mr Kerner, has sacked Lewis (Ben Mendelsohn). The actors now meet in secret at night, in the disused hospital laundry. Lewis has to comfort a distraught Ruth (Pamela Rabe), after she gets some bad news. Mr Kerner (Tony Llewellyn-Jones) and Errol (Colin Friels), his head of nursing, discuss changes in government policy as they leave the hospital. Kerner discovers the secret rehearsals. Errol, who is not in on the secret, quickly invents a cover story for the boss.
Curator’s notes
Pamela Rabe’s depiction of Ruth’s terrible anguish gives the film some much-needed reality, in the midst of all the comedy. The film walks a knife-edge in tone, between parody of the mentally ill, and a desire to show the patients as capable, if damaged, individuals. The talk of government policy changes, in the middle of the scene, reflects a controversial debate that was hot at the time, about closing hospitals and moving patients ‘back into the community’ – or as Colin Friels says ‘chucking them on the street’.
