Jane In Suburbia is set in Wollongong (the Gong), in the late seventies, a typically homogenous Australian suburb, with its heavy metal industry, multicultural blend, insipid shopping malls, fast food outlets, row upon row of similar looking housing commission dwellings, and tracts of new residential subdivisions. This neo-dramatic but dark humored stage play focuses on a small group of friends who have grown up in this steel working town without pity. They are young and decidedly unprofessional. Their usual nightly ritual centres around gathering in the car park of a local general store, where they while away the hours drinking, smoking, listening to hard core music and talking about the direction of their lives, much to the disgust of the hard working Sri Lankin owner Enyaw Rengrad, who takes exception to their presence.

Jane is an idealist and a frustrated rock musician looking unsuccessfully for that spark that will shape her writing and enable her to escape the Gong. Here two closest friends are Tony, a drunken mess-about who works in a local pizza place, and Karen, a university drop-out, a potentially volatile cocktail of repressed frustration and rage, whose schizophrenic disparagement is the catalyst for much of the drama that unfolds. Jane’s boyfriend Peter is a run-of-the-mill, regular guy who has no dreams or plans for his future betterment, while Sophie is a lonely, insecure, suicidal and emotionally fragile lesbian.

However, this night will be different from the countless others that have been spent in such aimless pursuits.

Rich Friend Returns
One of their former members has returned home for a brief visit. Rick is a successful business man, in town for a conference. He agrees to meet his buddies after the show and hang out with them for a while. He brings with him his sexy personal assistant Lydia Loose and a stretch limousine. But Rick becomes a mirror who reflects their own lack of success, highlighting their failed dreams and aspirations, and their reluctance to break away from this comfortable, familiar, but stifling environment.

The action takes place during the course of one night, which proves to be a major turning point for some of the characters. Gardner’s writing has an honesty and sharpness about it, and he seems to have some sympathy for his characters, caught in that uncomfortable wasteland between adolescence and adulthood. He captures perfectly the wasted days and wasted lives of his maverick, fringe-dwelling characters.

Gardner has assembled a fine ensemble cast of largely unknown young actors to flesh out the characters, and their performances are natural, fresh and full of youthful honesty. Music plays an important part in establishing ambience, and Jane In Suburbia is no exception, with a soundtrack featuring some well know (and some not so well known) alternative style bands.