Designer Showed Flair For Practical Elegance

Newcastle Herald

Monday January 8, 2007

Ken Longworth

RODNEY Essex was a small man whose size belied his zest for life.

And while most people want to get away from their day-time job in leisure hours, Essex was only too happy to burn the midnight oil in his quest for achieving perfection.

Essex carried his trade as an interior designer into his work as a designer for the stage, winning several CONDA nominations in the process.

His most recent nomination, for the comedy There Goes the Bride in 2004, saw him put on stage at the DAPA Theatre in Hamilton an elegant drawing room set leading through French windows to a realistic corner of a garden.

The set not only looked like the real thing, despite being in a small space, but gave the actors the chance to make with ease the swift entrances and exits demanded by the plot.

Elegance and practicality were very much hallmarks of Essex's life, which ended on Christmas Eve in the Mater Hospital at Waratah. Early that morning, Rodney Essex's long battle with cancer came to a peaceful end at the age of 58.

One of nine children, Essex was raised at Maclean on the NSW north coast. He soon showed a flair for design and spent much of his early life as a design contractor to major department stores in the state.

Moving to Nelson Bay, he operated for many years through the firms Bay Interiors and Decflair, winning a reputation for his ability to do quality work, often at short notice, in domestic and commercial situations.

Essex became involved in theatre at Nelson Bay in 1977, initially as an actor and designer and later as a director.

A 12-year stint with Nelson Bay Live Theatre was followed by a term as president of Tomaree Musical Theatre Company in the 1990s.

In the same decade Essex increasingly shifted his focus to Newcastle theatre, working with Newcastle Dramatic Art Club, DAPA Theatre, Intimate Theatre Company and Club 71.

Perhaps his most memorable role was as an English football fan in the 1993 comedy-drama Rattle of a Simple Man who falls tenderly in love with a prostitute while on a visit to London. His moving depiction of a lonely, vulnerable man won him the first of two CONDA nominations for performance as well as the multiple (three) nominations for his design work.

Rodney Essex, who lived at Raymond Terrace in the last years of his life, was buried in the family plot at Maclean on December 29. A Newcastle memorial service and celebration of his life was conducted at St Stephen's Anglican Church, Adamstown, on January 4 by Father Chris Bird who worked with Essex as a designer on Intimate Theatre Co productions.

© 2007 Newcastle Herald

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