2005: Requiem In Sanity by Peter Butz

 Requiem In Sanity by Peter Butz.  Maenad Theatre at Murranji Theatre, Hawker College.  From April 13, 8pm.

    This new "co-operative company dedicated to artists expressing themselves" has serious intentions, serious local actors, several with serious skills, and a serious though not original theme: that the world outside is mad enough for one escapee from the asylum on the hill to shoot herself, while her twin brother would prefer to return to the safety of the madhouse.

    Unfortunately the quality of theatrical imagination in the writing is patchy, the staging is pedestrian (literally as shadowy figures carry props on and off in clunky half-blackouts between scenes), and the sound track eclectic rather than clearly thematic.  Costumes were interesting.

    Despite these flaws, Maenad deserves encouragement.  Butz's script needs professional development to turn it from a concept into a properly focussed drama.  In its current form it tries to do too much, with a murderous devil and his fantasy mother which reminded me somehow of the Rocky Horror Show at one end, a clearly normal young secretary seduced by a cad and coming to a realistic understanding of her situation at the other, while the insane twins speak sanely about how the freedom they sought places them in jeopardy.  To tie all this together, Butz's plot becomes inevitably predictable, even melodramatic.

     I find it surprising that, though many of the Maenad company have stage experience and tertiary training, this production shows little understanding of theatrical style or form.  It is episodic without knowing how to be epic.  Bits seem naturalistic incomprehensibly mixed into expressionistic fantasy.  I apologise if this terminology is not your thing, but this company's serious intentions lead me to expect that they (after a century of development in Western theatre) should be more in control of dramatic style - which means that in the audience we wouldn't become conscious of this issue.  We would simply become engaged in the drama experience.

    So, messy but interesting, and hopefully the beginning of better work next time. 

© Frank McKone, Canberra