Synopsis – The Ozone Café
The Ozone Café is about three separate owners of the café and its demise through political corruption.
‘I never thought of this place as a ship,’ said Winifred.
‘Rennie and I, we had a few drinks the other night when we organised the wall. He told me a few things I didn’t know. When the café was first built, I just said to Rennie I wanted the outside walls curved like a woman. I wanted two stories with a deck on top, and have it rendered smooth as a woman all over. Rennie said he had trouble at first wondering how he would do it, but he eventually found a style, it’s called a P & O Orient. Like the large ships of the thirties. That’s why the building has the top deck and rails. It’s based on the bow of an ocean liner. All this time, I never knew, and he didn’t tell me, he just said, ‘you got the curves you wanted.’
Middle aged Vincenzo Polamo has migrated to Australia to start a new life. He has left his family back in Calabria, but hopes they will join him when they are ready. He eventually settles in fictional Satara Bay and with the help of his builder brother, builds the Ozone Café in 1957 in an ideal beach location in this popular holiday town. When Vincenzo comes to terms with knowing that his wife Maria will never set foot in Australia, the long hours of making a success of the café with an Australian cuisine, and without familial help, he sells the café, as well as being with Mandy a new woman in his life.
Unbeknown to Vincenzo, the previous property that was owned by Stan Sawbridge (Stan, the Man) still holds a Demolition Order that his Real Estate Agent Ronny Williams fails to remove during the sale. In the meantime, Vincenzo meets three children, Winifred, Casey and Nicolas Battersby (wheelchair bound) and creates a seascape mural on an outside wall, a dedication to them.
Joe Pendlebury is the second owner. However, he suffers setbacks with too few customers, poor health and a violent storm that causes wall damage close to the mural. Winifred, who has worked in the café, believes that Pendlebury is dismantling the mural and tells Vincenzo. In suspicious circumstances, Pendlebury uncharacteristically disappears and therfore his wife Shirley sells the café to Con and Dion Lasaridis (Greek boys).
Con and Dion Lasaridis (Greek boys)
In this act, Nicolas Battersby dies from muscular dystrophy and this heightens Winifred’s concerns to keep the mural sacred in his memory. While the Ozone is a success, the cracked Ozone wall is a serious problem for the Greek boys who cannot convince the Heytesbury Shire that the side courtyard wall has been professionally rebuilt. They lose the café in a court case when the Shire enforces the unrevoked Demolition Order of 1946. The Greek boys believe it’s due to the undercurrent of political corruption, but cannot afford to fight them in the High Court.When the Shire takes its time to demolish the Ozone, Vincenzo, with the help of his brother’s industrial machinery, removes the mural from the café. In broad daylight they act as a bogus demolition team reinstating the brick seascape in Vincenzo’s front yard. Still intact, a fountain wall is built, becoming a lasting memorial to Nicolas Battersby, as well as the sole surviving piece of The Ozone Café.
The Ozone Café is an exploration of power and control and of those who survive the most powerless of unfair situations. It is a David and Goliath story; the café just as fragile as the people who inhabit it, does not survive while Shire authorities prepare to tear it down. One small glimmer of hope remains - with the reinstatement of the mural as the last surviving piece of the cafe.
Sunday, June 27, 2021
