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The late Colleen McColloch’s groundbreaking novel, Tim, has been adapted for stage and is coming to the Wyong Art House in August.
First published in 1974, Tim told the story of Mary Horton, a comfortable and contented middle-aged spinster who meets Tim. GoodReads describes Tim as “a beautiful young man with the mind of a child; a gentle outcast in a cruel, unbending world – he illuminates the darkness of Mary’s days with his boyish innocence. And he will shatter the lonely, middle-aged spinster’s respectable, ordered life with a forbidden promise of a very special love.”
Adapted for the stage by Tim McGarry, Tim is reborn as a new Australian play based on the McCulloch novel of the same title.
Filled with notions of love, loss and acceptance, and set in the modern day, this seminal Australian story has been sensitively adapted for the stage by playwright Tim McGarry (Boy Swallows Universe, There’s A Sea in My Bedroom).
Central to the story is an unorthodox love that develops between Mary, a career driven business executive in her mid-50s, and Tim, a handsome 25-year-old labourer with a mild intellectual disability.
Tim has grown up in a small but loving working-class family who have tried to shelter him from the cruelness of the world.
He is often the brunt of ridicule by those around him, particularly his uncharitable work mates.
What begins as a chance meeting between them, soon develops into a life-changing relationship for both.
Tim’s protective family grapple with a deep suspicion of sexual coercion, a disability system that has failed them and the devastating loss of Tim’s mother.
Whilst Tim’s disability is never labelled, it is a constant, underlying theme, embedded in a story that explores the importance of embracing differences, opening oneself to the fullness of life and the opportunities it has to offer.
Directed by award-winning director Darren Yap (Diving for Pearls, Miracle City, Letters to Lindy), Tim’s gripping and controversial storyline catapulted Colleen McCullough to international fame. She remains Australia’s highest selling author, with over 80 million books sold worldwide.
TIM is Produced by Christine Dunstan Productions.
It is showing at The Art House Wyong for one night only on Wednesday, 2 August at 7:30pm. Tickets are available via The Art House box office
