The Players

by Deborah Pike

One hot summer, a group of university students gathers in an orchard to rehearse a play. Veronika is born for a life on the stage while Felix seizes his last chance for creative freedom. Sebastian woos Veronika, and Cassie longs for Sebastian. Josh and Gloria each carry a secret they are unable to share. Passion, rivalry, and enduring connections will bind the Players across years and continents, long after the final curtain falls and they leave university behind. From Perth to Paris, Cambridge, London, Berlin, and Dili the friends search for meaning in their careers and friendship, discover love, and endure heartbreak.

Genres: Contemporary

517 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 3, 2024

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

TBH this blurb doesn't even hint at the riches in this novel.

Felix (who's on exchange and is supposed to be studying something else) has made a choice of play that's ambitious.  It's The Marriage of Figaro, a comedy in five acts, written in 1778 by Pierre Beaumarchais. This subversive play was banned in pre-revolutionary France because of its focus on class tensions and the limitations of rank and privilege.  Most of us know this play better as Mozart's 1786 opera, which was approved for performance in Vienna because its political intent was strategically sanitised by the Italian librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.  (Rulers in Europe and Britain were wary of anything inflammatory that might provoke copycat revolutions in this era). So the Da Ponte Figaro replaces the denunciation of inherited nobility with an aria about unfaithful wives.  (See A Guide to The Marriage of Figaro by Hannah Nepoliva at the BBC Classical Music magazine.)

Felix's cast is a bunch of university students whose preoccupations (mirroring the mayhem in Figaro) are more often with each other than with realising the dramatic effects of a French play.  But like the dramatis personae of the play and the opera, they come from very different social backgrounds and ethnicities, which spark into assumptions, entitlements, misunderstandings, rejections, and betrayals.  And sometimes, intense discomfort:

Ah yes,  The Birthday party.  She'd felt like an imposter, smuggled in by Lucas to see the lives of the idle rich: the delicate glasses, the meticulously crafted morsels on silver trays.  Shiny people with neat edges and no stray threads, conversations trailing into nothing.  The birthday boy standing too close to too many women, a toothy smile on his face. (p.15)

At twenty, Veronika feels the chasm in so-called egalitarian Australian society:

She still found it hard to believe she was studying at university.  The only other person in her family to do so had been her great-grandfather, who had studied mathematics in Prague just before the century turned.  Her father was the son of Czech immigrants, had bought fifteen acres at the age of twenty-six, made a market farm in Mundaring in the Perth Hills.  Her mother, Angela, had grown up on a farm in the Avon Valley, and was then courted by Michal Vaček with baskets of apples and pears. [...] ...she'd never expected a daughter to study French, philosophy and literature.  It was, she'd said, a bit of a surprise, a lot of surprise really. (p.15)

The first disaster occurs when one of them persists with smoking in the university's rehearsal space, and they get booted out, with very little time to find another venue.  Veronika, however, does a deal with her father, the orchardist whose parents fled communism in Bohemia: if the players will help with the harvest, they can do the play in the orchard.  This change of venue brings her back into contact with Joshua, who's had a rough start in life and is therefore too easily dismissed as a rival by charming, handsome, rich, privileged Sebastian.  Who is, as we say in Australia, 'up himself.' That doesn't stop Cassie from fancying him, even though he dismisses her too because she isn't gorgeous like Veronika.  And while Veronika dallies with Sebastian, Joshua-on-the-rebound bonds with Gloria who's still under the thumb of her mother Who Would Not Approve.

You get the drift. Everybody is in love with the wrong person, but this isn't a silly romcom.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/03/04/t...

[Ashleigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book that I wanted to adore but it missed the mark. The Players follows a group of amateur actors performing The Marriage of Figaro and the passage their lives take in the aftermath of the show. It follows them setting out to achieve their dreams or what they think they are.

This book is my type on paper 100%. I love books that surround theatres, actors and the overall chaos that is trying to put together a show. There were a core cast of characters that we had POV chapters from, not the entirety of The Players but a significant chunk. There were also some others thrown in who were side characters on the periphery. This added nothing to the overall story, particularly one character who served as a villain to the overall plot. Charlie's chapters should have been emitted, his actions or motivations were not justified by his internal monologue, and it would have been more believable without him. Ana's POV did not serve a purpose either, it moved too quickly, she was introduced, was a minor plot point, exited the scene. The pace in which the events of her life happened were extremely difficult to orientate the timeline. By hearing the internal narration of all these characters who were only included to serve (at times) minor plot points, it muddied the waters. I felt like this book lost track of the story it was aiming to be tell which (I think??) was the coming of age of The Players.

This book was trying to do a lot of things, too many things. Due to this there were too many loose ends, too many unfinished arcs which overall left it with a lack of substance. There was an attempt to tie everything together with a through line but it felt like the majority of the book was blind to what it was trying to achieve.

[Sally Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rich read, following a troupe of student actors as their paths diverge in the years following their initial interaction. The well-developed characters take the reader through multiple countries, life decisions, and points of view.

If you enjoyed Tom Lake, you'll love The Players.

[Louise Vert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a different book for me. It follows a group of idealistic university students who put on a play. Of course this comes with all the drama one would expect: tension over roles, sexual tension, as well as the tension of young people trying to navigate impending adulthood. This might sound twee, yet it is anything but. I think this is due to Pike's wonderful mastery of language, which is both sophisticated and unpretentious, yet most of all, seductive. For a novel with many characters, it could be easy to become confused, yet Pike effortlessly drew me into each character, and with them around the world, as the players dispersed after that one summer of theatrical experimentation.

The Players lingers with me still as I wonder at what could have happened, what did happen, and what could happen next.

[Maddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished reading this compelling and beautifully written novel about a group of amateur actors and their afterlives. This novel is complex: it's not a formula novel. It's literary and quite edgy and gloriously uneven, which I think is the whole point. I enjoyed its refusal to give straight answers and the way the characters were given deep points of view. The author seemed intensely sympathetic in a way which I found quite moving and carefully researched. Highly recommended for lovers of literary fiction who are interested in vividly drawn characters.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written from multiple points of view, The Players starts in Western Australia and moves through different global locations as it follows a diverse group of young people and their shifting love triangles and alliances across a decade. In the absence of an over-arching plot, separate but intersecting storylines are developed for the characters, and I found myself invested in their life choices, failures and messy journeys of self-realisation, particularly those of the engaging main characters, Sebastian, Veronika, Joshua and Felix. The novel was written with intelligence and feeling, and made for an absorbing read. I particularly liked the writer’s skill at creating tension in small moments, and her descriptions of passionate encounters.

[Nina Levy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t want to finish this book because I didn’t want to say goodbye to the characters, who are depicted with such sensitivity and wit. Particularly pleasing is the narrative arc over the book’s decade; the way the characters ripple outwards from their 18 year old selves, each other and their home.

The descriptions of my hometown in the 90s are delightfully recognisable and I think will give a sense of life in Perth, Western Australia for international readers. I also very much enjoyed the book’s other settings, in particular Timor-Leste, a place I have not visited, which shimmers with tropical intensity.

A book to savour.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a really engaging read. I suppose I didn’t know what to expect when it said it was about uni students doing a play. I often read fantasy, so quite a different book for me. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I didn’t want to put it down. There’s plenty of tension as we hope the characters learn who they are and start to grow up. After I finished the book I found myself still thinking about it for a while which I think is the mark of a good read. One of the other reviewers here said they didn’t think the inclusion of the characters Ana and Charlie added to the story - while I agree Ana could have been fleshed out more, I think Charlie was a really intriguing character, fundamental to the story and I liked the plot twists that concerned him. I appreciated how much he was a complex force for both good and bad. Just like real life, this book avoids moral simplicity and glib or easy endings, and I think it’s all the more powerful for that. Overall, a very thoughtful and compelling read about humanity, life and love, and our search for meaning. Well worth reading.

[Greger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intriguing series of interwoven biographical sketches that starts with all the characters meeting in Perth and grows international from there. Each character has their own voice and each life is interestingly different from the others. The book is beautifully written and you're likely to hear your own voice somewhere in its pages, perhaps in several characters, and feel like part of a play. A realistic, raunchy and very rewarding read.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! It's a fascinating novel that follows the lives of a group of student actors; each character is carefully drawn and compelling. The novel makes us uncomfortable at times, as Australian readers, exploring some of our recent troubled history with international neighbours. The political commentary here is astute and Pike shows us the resonance of those decisions through the situations of each character. I read it in a gulp.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very nicely developed characters. Deborah Pike wrote a story that moved me to tears on a couple of occasions. While reminiscing of Tom Lake for a good portion of the book, The Players eventually blossoms into itself, and I enjoyed it very much.

[Deanne Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read. I especially liked the East Timorese/Timor Leste character and Joshua. I didn't connect with Veronika even though she was perhaps the main character. Her selfishness soured any sympathy I might have felt for her character.

[Georgia Loney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful evocative description of a unique period of time in Australian history, with rich intertextuality. It’s rare to see books make reference to the situation in East Timor, and its connections to Western Australia, particularly in the 90s.

[Julianne Jessop · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED The Players!!
I fell in love with characters and couldn’t put the book down!
I cried and laughed all the way through! Deborah is a beautiful writer and is also incredibly funny.
To me this novel is a wonderful homage to being young but also an adult, in a magical and defining time.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this novel - the characters were so real. I didn’t want to finish the book!

[Julian Canny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful story which will ring true for anyone who relates to coming of age in their twenties.

[Scott Baird (Gunpowder Fiction and Plot) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full Review Here - https://youtu.be/Pi9IOgCVlzo

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful Australian literary fiction