“Rosieville” by Mary Rachel Brown. Canberra Youth Theatre. At The Courtyard Studio until October 8. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

“ROSIEVILLE” is a quite splendid 70-minute piece about life, families and a pigeon.

And it, of course, all happens in Canberra, where playwright Mary Rachel Brown once belonged to Canberra Youth Theatre before she went on to be a writer for stage and TV  (want more? Search out her great “The Dapto Chaser”).

Rose (Imogen Bigsby-Chamberlin) is struggling to deal with the break-up of her parents when she is confronted by a wonderfully large, straight-talking pigeon (Clare Imlach) in her dreams.

Her brother Xavier (Oscar Abraham) has taken to hiding in the shed belonging to ill neighbour Alan (Richard Manning). Alan is being cared for by his daughter Anika (Disa Swifte) and both are absorbed by pigeon racing. Which is unfortunate for Anika’s boyfriend Ben (Callum Doherty) who is allergic to the birds.

Meanwhile, Rose’s mother Liz (Amy Crawford) copes with the break-up of her marriage by getting a very bad hairdo from hairdresser Cindy (Imlach again).

Throw into this the revival of the old Canberra Birdman Rally, where mad pilots would construct impossible planes and crash them off a tower on Lake Burley Griffin in an attempt to fly, and it’s all go as the ailing Alan tries to help Xavier with his entry.

Then there’s the melancholy of waiting for a racing pigeon to make it home.

The triumph of the script is in the way it swings between the social realism of some scenes and the surrealism of that giant exuberant pigeon brought to life so well by Imlach in Rose’s dreams. In the process it deals succinctly with the characters’ problems, not by supplying pat answers but by showing a path to continue on.

This is all given strong and unsentimental purpose by a perceptive cast. Bigsby-Chamberlin is sensitive but a realist as the dreamer Rose. Abraham charts Xavier’s progress from aimlessness to happy purpose. Swifte’s Anika looks like she might move on from grief and Doherty’s Ben shows a sudden practical capacity for helping others. And what is worse for Liz, the break-up of her marriage or the awful hairdo given her by Cindy? A human bit of both, from performer Crawford.

Manning’s Alan is a kind of centre to the action, showing the younger characters a courageous path parallel to that of the pigeons that don’t come in first. Or at all.

Aislinn King’s set and costumes, aided by Ethan Hamill’s occasionally surreal lighting and Patrick Haesler’s sound, support the show well. Luke Rogers directs with a sure hand.

A sane and funny play, a rarity in that it is about ordinary life in Canberra and a great ad for a Birdman Rally revival.