The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. Moonlight Theatre at ANU Arts Centre Drama Studio, directed by Justin Davidson. March 10-19, 8pm. Tickets $15 at the door, or dinner and show package at Teatro Vivaldi, 6257 2718.
Moonlight opens its second year with a very satisfying production of Chekhov's arguably most difficult play. After its failure in St Petersburg in 1896, Konstantin Stanislavski made it a lasting success at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. Stanislavski's method has clearly inspired Davidson and his cast, who have succeeded in making the play work on all its three levels - the intense personal interrelationships, the wider social context, and the changing nature of European theatre from simplistic melodrama to complex naturalism.
Each of ten characters are significant in the web of emotions, and each actor made their part clear and memorable. The only weakness - which may be to some extent excused in a university-based company whose theatre studies were not designed to train professional actors - was the lack of clarity of diction in some men, particularly Stuart Roberts in the major role of the suicidal writer Treplyov. Perhaps as an aspect of this uptight character, Roberts adopted a tight-jawed form of speech which too often failed to make individual words precise and comprehensible, even though there was no doubt about the character and his intentions.
David Clapham made the successful writer and seducer Trigorin properly, though sweetly, insufferable. Sam Hanna-Morrow's doctor Dorn weaved his way skilfully through the relationship quagmire. The teacher Medvedenko (Ben Drysdale) was as dry as chalkdust, and no wonder Stephanie Brewster's excellently played Masha took to snuff and vodka at the realisation she would have to marry him. The decrepit lawyer Sorin (Glenn Brown), estate manager Shamrayev (Brendan Hawke)and his wife Paulina (Martha Ibrahim) neatly filled the spaces in the peripatetic lives of the old always-acting actress Irina Arkadina (Emma Lawrence), Trigorin and the young "seagull" Nina Zarietchnaya. Rachael Teding van Berkhout in this role was notable for so successfully moving in and out of the roles that Nina tries to play. Her being on the edge of emotional collapse in the famous seagull speech was a high point.
After showing solid development last year through three Brecht plays, Moonlight can be proud of The Seagull, and we can look justifiably forward to two more Chekhov plays in 2005.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 12 March 2005
Friday, 11 March 2005
2005: Georgia by Jill Shearer
Georgia by Jill Shearer. Directed by Carol Woodrow at The Street Theatre, March 10-19, 8pm.
This play is about an intense, original artist, the American Georgia O'Keeffe. Her minder in her old age, Juan Hamilton, puts her in a ground floor room while his family lives upstairs. "Why can't I be upstairs?" Georgia demands. "Because you might fall," he replies. "Yes," she retorts, "but I might fly."
Unfortunately, this production fails to get off the ground. Definitely pedestrian. No winging our imaginations to the heights of O'Keeffe's paintings, some of which are displayed in the foyer. And so disappointing when the actors, particularly Jennifer Hagan as Georgia and Ken Spiteri as Juan, are so good.
The fault lies, I think, partly in a script which uses repetitive flashbacks which tell us a little more information each time but do not reveal dramatic new perspectives on Georgia's part about her personal progress as an artist.
Woodrow describes the play as "merging constantly from 'the real' to memory, dream, myth or fantasy, and back to 'the real', but I found the many short scenes broken by blackouts in the first act did not create a sense of merging. In the second act, centred around a bed in an unadorned space, characters from the present and past could come and go, more successfully creating an uninterrupted flow in and out of reality for part of the time, but still with sudden stops and starts, including a final stop which left me wondering if this was the end (which it was).
A major failing, I felt, was an unimaginative use of the projected images. We did not see the "color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" that O'Keeffe wrote about. The Art Gallery posters in the foyer and the 1921 photos of her by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and reproduced in the program, could have been projected to pinpoint her feelings at significant points in her life. The recorded sound track also needed adjusting to support the action rather than interrupt or dominate the speakers.
Finally, this production does not set us up emotionally to hope that Georgia can die satisfied with her life, and to discover if she does. It's quite interesting to know her story but, as I overheard someone say, "I don't really care."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This play is about an intense, original artist, the American Georgia O'Keeffe. Her minder in her old age, Juan Hamilton, puts her in a ground floor room while his family lives upstairs. "Why can't I be upstairs?" Georgia demands. "Because you might fall," he replies. "Yes," she retorts, "but I might fly."
Unfortunately, this production fails to get off the ground. Definitely pedestrian. No winging our imaginations to the heights of O'Keeffe's paintings, some of which are displayed in the foyer. And so disappointing when the actors, particularly Jennifer Hagan as Georgia and Ken Spiteri as Juan, are so good.
The fault lies, I think, partly in a script which uses repetitive flashbacks which tell us a little more information each time but do not reveal dramatic new perspectives on Georgia's part about her personal progress as an artist.
Woodrow describes the play as "merging constantly from 'the real' to memory, dream, myth or fantasy, and back to 'the real', but I found the many short scenes broken by blackouts in the first act did not create a sense of merging. In the second act, centred around a bed in an unadorned space, characters from the present and past could come and go, more successfully creating an uninterrupted flow in and out of reality for part of the time, but still with sudden stops and starts, including a final stop which left me wondering if this was the end (which it was).
A major failing, I felt, was an unimaginative use of the projected images. We did not see the "color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" that O'Keeffe wrote about. The Art Gallery posters in the foyer and the 1921 photos of her by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and reproduced in the program, could have been projected to pinpoint her feelings at significant points in her life. The recorded sound track also needed adjusting to support the action rather than interrupt or dominate the speakers.
Finally, this production does not set us up emotionally to hope that Georgia can die satisfied with her life, and to discover if she does. It's quite interesting to know her story but, as I overheard someone say, "I don't really care."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 3 March 2005
2005: The Miser by Moliere. Review.
The Miser by Moliere directed by Jordan Best. The Street Theatre Members in association with Centrepiece Theatre at The Street Theatre Studio, Thursdays to Saturdays March 3-19, 7.30pm. Twilight March 13, 5pm. Matinee March 19, 2.30pm. Bookings: 6247 1223. Tickets: $19/$15.
This is a competent and highly enjoyable production of a classic comedy. The modern translation catches all the twists and turns of the original, and the actors work well as a team and individually. Moliere's theme, about how obsession with money results in gross abuse of common humanity, is clearly presented in a lively physical style of acting in a bright colourful setting with costumes to match.
Among the actors, two stood out in my view.
Ian Croker, in the lead role of the miser Harpagon, played a devilish character which required great energy to maintain. His intensity gave us an interesting perspective which, at the right moments, revealed the psychological insecurity which underlies such a determinedly autocratic figure. There was something of Saddam Hussein in Croker's Harpagon when, having discovered his 10,000 crowns were stolen, he accused the whole town, including us in the audience, demanding that we all be tortured.
In a strong and intelligent performance of Frosine, Margie Sainsbury showed us the kind of torture imposed by the miser, hiding her real self in the hope of gaining enough to survive, but being forced to grovel before the dictator who takes all the flattery and advantage he can get without ever giving anything in return. Sainsbury found both the funny clown and the tragic clown in the role, and allowed us the satisfaction of seeing the real Frosine in the final scene, as Moliere surely intended.
Technically, Matt Balmford (Cleante) and Jeremy Just (Jacques) needed clearer articulation and volume control, but otherwise in characterisation and comedic style were the equals of Carly Jacobs (Marianne), and Matt Borneman (La Merluche) and Tania Stangret (Brindavine) who also played a range of slapstick roles. In the more sane roles of Valere (Jim Adamik) and Elise (Liz Cotton), Adamik's acting was the stronger, while Cotton's stage presence faded at times - though her stoush with her father over who she would not marry showed her capability.
Newly established Centrepiece Theatre has begun very well.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a competent and highly enjoyable production of a classic comedy. The modern translation catches all the twists and turns of the original, and the actors work well as a team and individually. Moliere's theme, about how obsession with money results in gross abuse of common humanity, is clearly presented in a lively physical style of acting in a bright colourful setting with costumes to match.
Among the actors, two stood out in my view.
Ian Croker, in the lead role of the miser Harpagon, played a devilish character which required great energy to maintain. His intensity gave us an interesting perspective which, at the right moments, revealed the psychological insecurity which underlies such a determinedly autocratic figure. There was something of Saddam Hussein in Croker's Harpagon when, having discovered his 10,000 crowns were stolen, he accused the whole town, including us in the audience, demanding that we all be tortured.
In a strong and intelligent performance of Frosine, Margie Sainsbury showed us the kind of torture imposed by the miser, hiding her real self in the hope of gaining enough to survive, but being forced to grovel before the dictator who takes all the flattery and advantage he can get without ever giving anything in return. Sainsbury found both the funny clown and the tragic clown in the role, and allowed us the satisfaction of seeing the real Frosine in the final scene, as Moliere surely intended.
Technically, Matt Balmford (Cleante) and Jeremy Just (Jacques) needed clearer articulation and volume control, but otherwise in characterisation and comedic style were the equals of Carly Jacobs (Marianne), and Matt Borneman (La Merluche) and Tania Stangret (Brindavine) who also played a range of slapstick roles. In the more sane roles of Valere (Jim Adamik) and Elise (Liz Cotton), Adamik's acting was the stronger, while Cotton's stage presence faded at times - though her stoush with her father over who she would not marry showed her capability.
Newly established Centrepiece Theatre has begun very well.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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