Much Ado About Nothing means much ado about a lot of things to David Madew. Sunday March 5 is not far away, but Madew Wines has much more on its plate than its second Shakespeare production, again by Melbourne's Essential Theatre.
You might think the 40 weddings booked for the next 12 months would be enough. The setting for last year's A Midsummer Night's Dream now boasts tasteful curved low stone walls to complement the 2 huge willow trees which define the green-sward stage, making the acting area so attractive that young couples seem to feel they must perform there. Benedick and Beatrice never had it so good. Love doesn't exactly run smooth in Much Ado, but we shall see, anon, a racy production that the real marriages may emulate.
Talking to David Madew is to be caught up in a philosophical whirlwind. Fresh ideas spin around issues of practicality, and we finally reach a truism - that a quality process is essential for a quality product. "Riesling again shows well at the Madew site along with pinot gris and merlot - the region's alternative red variety to the almost uniformly successful shiraz," according to Sydney wine critic Peter Bourne discussing the 1995 vintage. I can personally attest to the very pleasant Belle Riesling 1993.
But, after being a finalist in 2002 in the Restaurant in a winery and Tourism Restaurant categories, Madew was the 2004 Winner - Restaurant in a winery - ACT/Southern NSW Region Restaurant & Caterers Awards for Excellence. His GrapeFoodWine Restaurant now has a new manager, Jenny O'Hagan, with a degree in graphic design (and a special interest in weddings), and a new chef will arrive from London in June, as yet incognito. So the wine and restaurant show quality in process and product.
But, like so many theatrical ventures in Australia, Madew has to budget careful to avoid numbers like Bell Shakespeare's $400,000 below the line that The Canberra Times reported recently. Looking at process, he is aiming to tailor his performance offerings to the times and to an audience seeking quality productions. This means smaller scale shows than his original Opera by George!, but more of them. Having successfully established Essential Theatre's Shakespeare in the Vines last year, 2006 will see the March 5 show and another in September / October. He has also moved a shed to allow outdoor film presentations from the restaurant balcony (and greatly improving the setting of the restaurant against the hills behind), and by testing ideas with care, he hopes to have 4 performance events next year, then 6 from 2008.
The measure of Madew's long-tem commitment, in which he plans to include professional theatre people and musicians from our region, can be seen growing next to the vines. His father has planted a variety of oak species - the ones which make good barrels - which will mature in 2095. He has also announced plans to stand for preselection against Steve Whan for the seat of Monaro, with support for regional arts, community and environment among his political objectives. His philosophy is to base his achievements on quality standards, aiming to be "popular, not populist."
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
Essential Theatre at Madew Wines (Lake George Wineries off Federal Highway)
Sunday March 5, lunch 1.30pm, performance 4pm. Details www.madewwines.com.au or Tel 4848 0026
Tickets limited to 300. Hero general admission $40, Claudio Hamper Package $60, Benedick Cocktail Package $65, Beatrice Lunch Package $80, Balthazar Total Package $100. Dogberry group bookings of 15 or more $40pp includes ticket in reserved area plus a bottle of wine for every 5 people booked.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 25 February 2006
Thursday, 16 February 2006
2006: Seasons of Keene - I Alone by Daniel Keene
Seasons of Keene - I Alone. Two monologues by Daniel Keene: Kaddish performed by Peter Damien Hayes and The Rain performed by Liliana Bogatko, directed by Ben Drysdale for National Multicultural Fringe. The Street Theatre Studio February 16-18, 7.30pm.
Theatre comes in all shapes and sizes. This production is quite tiny, lasting not much more than 30 minutes, but delicately done. Like Bach's well-tempered klavier, these monologues are short exercises which test the actor and have an extra layer of depth than the ordinary five-finger exercise.
In Kaddish an old man speaks about his life with a woman who has died. Gradually, we realise that his emotion is building, that he is not able to contain his grief, until his story leads to an image - of a stuck pig - and in describing the scene to us he is at last able to find relief in a kind of scream.
Hayes created the character for us in his stilted movement around his room with no more than a bed and a chair. The result, in some 10 minutes, was quite electric, and sad.
Bogatko, in her longer The Rain, used movement to less effect, creating an old woman but not a very specific character. This piece relies on the story she tells of being a mere bystander given things by people in long lines being put on trains, and how she kept them, completely filling her house, waiting for the people to return and claim their belongings. Which they never do.
The Rain, I feel, needed to have more story-telling devices added to this old woman's voice to create in us more variety of responses. On the other hand, the piece makes its point as the picture of the people sent to the gas chambers becomes clear. With this production successfully complete, Drysdale might now consider a larger night of Keene theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Theatre comes in all shapes and sizes. This production is quite tiny, lasting not much more than 30 minutes, but delicately done. Like Bach's well-tempered klavier, these monologues are short exercises which test the actor and have an extra layer of depth than the ordinary five-finger exercise.
In Kaddish an old man speaks about his life with a woman who has died. Gradually, we realise that his emotion is building, that he is not able to contain his grief, until his story leads to an image - of a stuck pig - and in describing the scene to us he is at last able to find relief in a kind of scream.
Hayes created the character for us in his stilted movement around his room with no more than a bed and a chair. The result, in some 10 minutes, was quite electric, and sad.
Bogatko, in her longer The Rain, used movement to less effect, creating an old woman but not a very specific character. This piece relies on the story she tells of being a mere bystander given things by people in long lines being put on trains, and how she kept them, completely filling her house, waiting for the people to return and claim their belongings. Which they never do.
The Rain, I feel, needed to have more story-telling devices added to this old woman's voice to create in us more variety of responses. On the other hand, the piece makes its point as the picture of the people sent to the gas chambers becomes clear. With this production successfully complete, Drysdale might now consider a larger night of Keene theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 13 February 2006
2006: What's Goin' On? by John Barresi
What's Goin' On? written and performed by John Barresi. National Multicultural Festival at Tradesmen's Union Club, Dickson, February 13-15, 7.45 for 8pm start. Bookings: 6162 5656
Barresi's performance dominates as uncle (famous comedian), mother (deli-cafe owner), father (builder) and grandfather (escapee from the nursing home) of Luigi Lambrusco, overshadowing James Liotta (Luigi) and Michelle Galati as Karen Brown in this comedy of an Italian-Australian romance succeeding against all the traditional family objections. I would like to see the script give the young lovers more to counterbalance the star's roles.
Each of Barresi's characters are truly awful caricatures, played right over the top with sexual innuendo, Italian-English language jokes, exaggerated costumes, extreme stereotypes, and bodily movements no Anglo-Saxon could look at without shame. The result is very funny, whatever your cultural background (to quote, "Ca-tholic, Muslimite or P...P...Prostitute"), though especially so for the Australians of Mediterranean background who were there on opening night at The Tradies. Multiculturalism was the message on stage and was the order of the day among the audience. With supper at interval, the show is a good community event for everyone.
The Tradies are to be congratulated on sponsoring this show and providing a new venue for the National Multicultural Festival for the next three years. It is a trial venture for the Club and, with a full house on opening and few tickets left for the season, should be a great success. Though technician Tania Lentini had to contend with radio microphone problems on first night, these will be fixed with time, and the venue is intimate enough for voices to carry in any case.
If Luigi and Karen were written as commedia dell'arte characters, the play would become more consistently funny - in the real Italian tradition. The second half already points the way, as the audience reaction showed. It's a good night out now, but it could be much better.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Barresi's performance dominates as uncle (famous comedian), mother (deli-cafe owner), father (builder) and grandfather (escapee from the nursing home) of Luigi Lambrusco, overshadowing James Liotta (Luigi) and Michelle Galati as Karen Brown in this comedy of an Italian-Australian romance succeeding against all the traditional family objections. I would like to see the script give the young lovers more to counterbalance the star's roles.
Each of Barresi's characters are truly awful caricatures, played right over the top with sexual innuendo, Italian-English language jokes, exaggerated costumes, extreme stereotypes, and bodily movements no Anglo-Saxon could look at without shame. The result is very funny, whatever your cultural background (to quote, "Ca-tholic, Muslimite or P...P...Prostitute"), though especially so for the Australians of Mediterranean background who were there on opening night at The Tradies. Multiculturalism was the message on stage and was the order of the day among the audience. With supper at interval, the show is a good community event for everyone.
The Tradies are to be congratulated on sponsoring this show and providing a new venue for the National Multicultural Festival for the next three years. It is a trial venture for the Club and, with a full house on opening and few tickets left for the season, should be a great success. Though technician Tania Lentini had to contend with radio microphone problems on first night, these will be fixed with time, and the venue is intimate enough for voices to carry in any case.
If Luigi and Karen were written as commedia dell'arte characters, the play would become more consistently funny - in the real Italian tradition. The second half already points the way, as the audience reaction showed. It's a good night out now, but it could be much better.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 8 February 2006
2006: La Guerra by Teatro del Mundo. Preview feature article.
"Caudillo de España por la gracia de Dios" (The Leader of Spain by the grace of God). This was the title Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco y Bahamonde gave himself when in 1939 he established himself dictator of Spain, alongside Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany. Young Australians today probably think of Hitler and Mussolini as figures of ancient history. They were defeated in 1945. But General Franco was never defeated and relinquished his power only when he died in 1975 - just 31 years ago.
Teatro del Mundo is an Adelaide based theatre aiming to make the Spanish experience as real and personal for the rest of the world as it is for their Spanish background members. How should they do it, and why?
For the National Multicultural Festival they are performing La Guerra (The War). Why? - Because the story of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's, the attempt led by the Communist Party to defeat Franco's rise to power, is as relevant today as we face the problem of the use of the military for political purposes. For the young people who are not aware of General Franco, the Communists may also seem an unimportant part of history - almost a joke, since it all collapsed so quickly 15 years ago. But many young people from countries around the world, including Australia, went to fight alongside the Communists in Spain to try to bring democracy to a country ruled for centuries by kings and queens, and now under threat from an upstart army officer.
Telling the story as a history text is not enough to make us understand how the Spanish people feel, but Spanish dance - flamenco - is dramatic and powerful. So Liana Vargas plays the role of Dolores Ibarruri, the chief propagandist for the Communist Party, who directly confronts General Franco. Ibarruri leads a band of Revolutionary Women (Las Mujeres Libres - Anna Ovanesyan, Lucinna Chua and Natalie Quici) in her famous speech "No pasaran" (They shall not pass). Vargas explains "I have taken traditional flamenco and extended its potential, explored its pain and its ability to convey human emotion. It make so much sense to tell this story through flamenco." The dance can be imagined as Ibarruri says "It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees."
But this drama is much more than the just a picture of Franco as cruel tyranny in a dramatic dance with Ibarruri, the pride of Spain. There is a special irony in Chris Shepherd's role, consistent with the flamenco tradition, of the poetic nature of the male dancer, and the connection with the sensitivity and grace of the toreador, the bull fighter, when he delivers the famous poem by Federico Garcia Lorca "A las cinco de le tarde" (At five in the afternoon).
"Now the dove and the leopard wrestle / at five in the afternoon. / And a thigh with a desolated horn / at five in the afternoon / ... And the bull alone with a high heart! / At five in the afternoon / ... Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! / It was five by all the clocks! / It was five in the shade of the afternoon!"
Should we feel only sympathy for the killed bullfighter, or pride in the success of the harrassed bull? What is the right way to feel in a civil war - did the Communists, however romantic their fight, get what they deserved? Did Lorca, the poet who represented all the hopes and fears of the Spanish people - "Tell the moon to come, for I do not want to see the blood of Ignacio on the sand" - deserve to be dragged into a field in 1936 by Franco's soldiers, shot dead and tossed into an unmarked grave?
Teatro del Mundo's Flamenco Quartet - guitarist Aloysius Leeson, cantaor (singer) Mari Olivares, violinist Andi Aldam and percussionist Shaun Doddy - have searched for the balance between the traditional flamenco improvisation and the written word and score, creating highly orchestrated music of many layers and subtle innuendo. Vargas says "The sound of La Guerra is as impressive as its subject matter. It drives us to fever pitch."
The work is placed in context by a montage of original propaganda posters and images from the Civil War, complementing the dance, spoken word, song and live music. Established in 2000 with an Arts South Australia development grant, Teatro del Mundo has previously presented La Guerra to full houses at the Adelaide Fringe and South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festivals in 2004.
Liana Vargas will also conduct open flamenco dance workshops February 18-19, for beginners to advanced dance students.
La Guerra
Teatro del Mundo
The Street Theatre Studio
Thursday to Saturday February 16-18, 8pm
Tickets: full $35; concessions and Festival card holders $30
Bookings: The Street Theatre 6247 1223
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Teatro del Mundo is an Adelaide based theatre aiming to make the Spanish experience as real and personal for the rest of the world as it is for their Spanish background members. How should they do it, and why?
For the National Multicultural Festival they are performing La Guerra (The War). Why? - Because the story of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's, the attempt led by the Communist Party to defeat Franco's rise to power, is as relevant today as we face the problem of the use of the military for political purposes. For the young people who are not aware of General Franco, the Communists may also seem an unimportant part of history - almost a joke, since it all collapsed so quickly 15 years ago. But many young people from countries around the world, including Australia, went to fight alongside the Communists in Spain to try to bring democracy to a country ruled for centuries by kings and queens, and now under threat from an upstart army officer.
Telling the story as a history text is not enough to make us understand how the Spanish people feel, but Spanish dance - flamenco - is dramatic and powerful. So Liana Vargas plays the role of Dolores Ibarruri, the chief propagandist for the Communist Party, who directly confronts General Franco. Ibarruri leads a band of Revolutionary Women (Las Mujeres Libres - Anna Ovanesyan, Lucinna Chua and Natalie Quici) in her famous speech "No pasaran" (They shall not pass). Vargas explains "I have taken traditional flamenco and extended its potential, explored its pain and its ability to convey human emotion. It make so much sense to tell this story through flamenco." The dance can be imagined as Ibarruri says "It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees."
But this drama is much more than the just a picture of Franco as cruel tyranny in a dramatic dance with Ibarruri, the pride of Spain. There is a special irony in Chris Shepherd's role, consistent with the flamenco tradition, of the poetic nature of the male dancer, and the connection with the sensitivity and grace of the toreador, the bull fighter, when he delivers the famous poem by Federico Garcia Lorca "A las cinco de le tarde" (At five in the afternoon).
"Now the dove and the leopard wrestle / at five in the afternoon. / And a thigh with a desolated horn / at five in the afternoon / ... And the bull alone with a high heart! / At five in the afternoon / ... Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! / It was five by all the clocks! / It was five in the shade of the afternoon!"
Should we feel only sympathy for the killed bullfighter, or pride in the success of the harrassed bull? What is the right way to feel in a civil war - did the Communists, however romantic their fight, get what they deserved? Did Lorca, the poet who represented all the hopes and fears of the Spanish people - "Tell the moon to come, for I do not want to see the blood of Ignacio on the sand" - deserve to be dragged into a field in 1936 by Franco's soldiers, shot dead and tossed into an unmarked grave?
Teatro del Mundo's Flamenco Quartet - guitarist Aloysius Leeson, cantaor (singer) Mari Olivares, violinist Andi Aldam and percussionist Shaun Doddy - have searched for the balance between the traditional flamenco improvisation and the written word and score, creating highly orchestrated music of many layers and subtle innuendo. Vargas says "The sound of La Guerra is as impressive as its subject matter. It drives us to fever pitch."
The work is placed in context by a montage of original propaganda posters and images from the Civil War, complementing the dance, spoken word, song and live music. Established in 2000 with an Arts South Australia development grant, Teatro del Mundo has previously presented La Guerra to full houses at the Adelaide Fringe and South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festivals in 2004.
Liana Vargas will also conduct open flamenco dance workshops February 18-19, for beginners to advanced dance students.
La Guerra
Teatro del Mundo
The Street Theatre Studio
Thursday to Saturday February 16-18, 8pm
Tickets: full $35; concessions and Festival card holders $30
Bookings: The Street Theatre 6247 1223
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 3 February 2006
2006: "Judith as she was" by Jolanta Juszkiewicz. Preview feature article.
Kropka Theatre, founded by Jolanta Juszkiewicz in Sydney in 1997, has a special place in the Australian theatre scene. Though Judith as she was is to be performed as part of the National Multicultural Festival, Kropka is not a theatre of migrant experience, though that is an important role to have in a country full of immigrants - we will see an example in My Of Course Life this coming week.
It is not a theatre of our modern Australian identity, which we have seen this week in Drifting. It is not European theatre transposed to the colonies, though some readers may remember an early Kropka production in the 1999 Multicultural Festival called Grushenka, directed by Rodney Fisher, and based on the character in Dostoyevski's The Brothers Karamazov.
Juszkiewicz instead is a migrant, from Poland, who explores the emotions and ideas which are essential to her life as a person living in Australia - indeed, as an Australian - seeking to create what she describes as "poetic-metaphorical theatre, where the main attention is devoted to the psychologically exact, emotional and plastic acting, the special and unique usage of the scene properties which gets a multi-layer meaning in the play." Judith as she was has an interesting background indeed.
First, why was the story of Judith chosen? Readers will surely know the famous, rather grisly, early 17th Century series of paintings of Judith Beheading Holofernes by one of the few Renaissance woman artists, Artemisia Gentileschi. Was Judith a cold-hearted spy who seduced the general, Holofernes, who threatened to destroy the outnumbered Jewish forces? Was she, mythical or not, a great hero who saved her nation?
While Juszkiewicz was having a coffee break in rehearsals for her previous work Convict Women - Lifetime Exile, in a hall belonging to the Catholic Church, the resident priest raised the issue which became her central concern. Is it right or wrong to kill in the name of the Lord, in the cause of justice?
Gradually the importance of Judith's story seeped into the deeper recesses of her thinking, and Juszkiewicz found herself wanting to explore Judith as a normal woman. She, according to the text in the Apocrypha - the hidden books of the Old Testament - was a widow, who had not borne a child. Her brother-in-law had the right to take her as his wife, but, perhaps because she was childless and so of less interest to him, gave her time to make her own decision. Why did she decide to approach the enemy? How did she feel when surrounded by enemy soldiers? Was she attracted to the great General Holofernes, and he to her? Did she do what she knew she had to do, despite her feelings? In her later life was she sure that she had done the right thing?
In the meantime, Juszkiewicz was thinking, how important is the message in this myth for the modern world of terrorists who do indeed kill in the name of the Lord, in the cause of justice as they see it? If Judith was a terrorist, how do normal people do these things?
Then add to our story theatre director Anatoly Frusin, born in Ukraine, converted to Judaism when young and living in Israel, leaving his non-Jewish mother in New Zealand to become a NIDA graduate, working often with Neil Armfield at Company B and Opera Australia. For him, his mother's decision to become Jewish in the belief that it would make his life easier in the Jewish community has emotional resonances, in odd ways, with the story of Judith. And so, as Juszkiewicz worked out how to express the feelings of a normal woman, Judith, with a terrible responsibility, Frusin became not so much her director but her enabler, the person who helped her find the forms and images on stage to create Judith's story and its metaphorical meaning - the outside but committed observer who could provide the critical view she needed.
And so was born and grew Judith as she was. Juszkiewicz is influenced by the Polish-Jewish Bruno Schulz, writer of "poetic and fantastic short stories [in which] small details of ordinary reality become powerful and protean forces of beauty", who was shot by a Gestapo officer in 1942 on the street of his beloved home town, Drohobycz. Though she believes her Judith justifies her action in killing Holofernes, accepting that it was the will of the Lord, her play raises for us all the ultimate questions of justice and death.
Judith as she was devised and performed by Jolanta Juszkiewicz
Kropka Theatre, Sydney, directed by Anatoly Frusin
The Street Theatre Studio
Sunday to Tuesday February 12-14, 7pm
Tickets: $23 full, $18 concession, $20 group
Bookings: The Street Theatre 9247 1223
© Frank McKone, Canberra
It is not a theatre of our modern Australian identity, which we have seen this week in Drifting. It is not European theatre transposed to the colonies, though some readers may remember an early Kropka production in the 1999 Multicultural Festival called Grushenka, directed by Rodney Fisher, and based on the character in Dostoyevski's The Brothers Karamazov.
Juszkiewicz instead is a migrant, from Poland, who explores the emotions and ideas which are essential to her life as a person living in Australia - indeed, as an Australian - seeking to create what she describes as "poetic-metaphorical theatre, where the main attention is devoted to the psychologically exact, emotional and plastic acting, the special and unique usage of the scene properties which gets a multi-layer meaning in the play." Judith as she was has an interesting background indeed.
First, why was the story of Judith chosen? Readers will surely know the famous, rather grisly, early 17th Century series of paintings of Judith Beheading Holofernes by one of the few Renaissance woman artists, Artemisia Gentileschi. Was Judith a cold-hearted spy who seduced the general, Holofernes, who threatened to destroy the outnumbered Jewish forces? Was she, mythical or not, a great hero who saved her nation?
While Juszkiewicz was having a coffee break in rehearsals for her previous work Convict Women - Lifetime Exile, in a hall belonging to the Catholic Church, the resident priest raised the issue which became her central concern. Is it right or wrong to kill in the name of the Lord, in the cause of justice?
Gradually the importance of Judith's story seeped into the deeper recesses of her thinking, and Juszkiewicz found herself wanting to explore Judith as a normal woman. She, according to the text in the Apocrypha - the hidden books of the Old Testament - was a widow, who had not borne a child. Her brother-in-law had the right to take her as his wife, but, perhaps because she was childless and so of less interest to him, gave her time to make her own decision. Why did she decide to approach the enemy? How did she feel when surrounded by enemy soldiers? Was she attracted to the great General Holofernes, and he to her? Did she do what she knew she had to do, despite her feelings? In her later life was she sure that she had done the right thing?
In the meantime, Juszkiewicz was thinking, how important is the message in this myth for the modern world of terrorists who do indeed kill in the name of the Lord, in the cause of justice as they see it? If Judith was a terrorist, how do normal people do these things?
Then add to our story theatre director Anatoly Frusin, born in Ukraine, converted to Judaism when young and living in Israel, leaving his non-Jewish mother in New Zealand to become a NIDA graduate, working often with Neil Armfield at Company B and Opera Australia. For him, his mother's decision to become Jewish in the belief that it would make his life easier in the Jewish community has emotional resonances, in odd ways, with the story of Judith. And so, as Juszkiewicz worked out how to express the feelings of a normal woman, Judith, with a terrible responsibility, Frusin became not so much her director but her enabler, the person who helped her find the forms and images on stage to create Judith's story and its metaphorical meaning - the outside but committed observer who could provide the critical view she needed.
And so was born and grew Judith as she was. Juszkiewicz is influenced by the Polish-Jewish Bruno Schulz, writer of "poetic and fantastic short stories [in which] small details of ordinary reality become powerful and protean forces of beauty", who was shot by a Gestapo officer in 1942 on the street of his beloved home town, Drohobycz. Though she believes her Judith justifies her action in killing Holofernes, accepting that it was the will of the Lord, her play raises for us all the ultimate questions of justice and death.
Judith as she was devised and performed by Jolanta Juszkiewicz
Kropka Theatre, Sydney, directed by Anatoly Frusin
The Street Theatre Studio
Sunday to Tuesday February 12-14, 7pm
Tickets: $23 full, $18 concession, $20 group
Bookings: The Street Theatre 9247 1223
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2006: The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco. Preview feature article.
It's a little disconcerting to hear from the director of The Chairs for the National Multicultural Festival, Chris Simion, "I hate Ionesco".
What can she mean? Eugene Ionesco, who wrote the play in 1952, is after all Romania's most famous playwright, though he did from his mid-twenties live and work in France. Simion is among Romania's busiest directors, concentrating on The Chairs twice a day in Bucharest and having previously taken the production to India for the Francophone Festival in 2004.
According to Simion, a founder of the Compania de teatru "D'AYA" as an experimental student theatre group in 1999, "D'aya" means "just like that" and "is a simple name for simple theatre". The Chairs may seem simple, but there's a lot more to it than a superficial view might suggest. Considering Simion's success over the years, taking the company to theatre festivals in Egypt and Italy, her dislike of Ionesco must surely be disingenuous.
In The Chairs, an old couple decide they would like to pass on to humanity what they have learned in their long lives. They invite a vast crowd of people, none of whom come. All the Old Man (Ioana Marchidan) and the Old Woman (Adriana Trandafir) can do is speak to a vast array of empty chairs.
So demoralised that they can't go on living, the old couple leave the revelation of their message to an Orator they have hired (Gabriel Fatu) - but he turns out to be deaf-mute. Well, maybe such a black view of the very ordinary lives we mostly lead is enough to hate Ionesco for. But does this mean his play is too horrible to watch?
On the contrary, there is a special fascination in the old couple's dilemma. Rather than depending on speech, Daya Theatre have devised a "modern and a new interpretation" based in movement and comedy which means the "end of our performance is not a conclusion. It's a choice."
What we can expect to see is strong theatre from that part of the world, the eastern end of Old Europe, where cultural diversity has been both a blessing and a cause of conflict for so long, and so has a tradition of art in all forms which entertains while exposing realities. It is this tradition which gives depth to what at first seems simple.
For the actors, then, there is a deep satisfaction in presenting The Chairs. Trandafir says "my role in the play is based upon movement and so it was difficult to assume it at my age. But I believed in this work and I made it. Now I'm happy." Fatu explains "In our performance the director's vision surpasses the one of the author, giving an open end to the play".
And so, we can reinterpret Simion's concern about Ionesco. When he was writing in the years soon after World War II, at the time when the proliferation of nuclear weapons was the order of the day, it was not surprising that his play had a doomsday feeling about it. Politically, Romania and its neighbours were oppressive and dangerous places for original thinkers and activists. For the new generation of the 1990s Ionesco's cynicism and the philosophy of absurdism - that life actually has no purpose despite what we would like to believe - must have been something to hate. How else could things change for the better?
The irony is, of course, that Simion admits that Ionesco's "vision of life is real". She at the same time proves him wrong in the very creation of art on stage, performing his play with a new purpose which inspires the actors, and will surely inspire us in the audience.
This is the special value of our National Multicultural Festival, growing, once again under Dominic Mico's direction, far beyond a folkloric celebration. The Embassy of Romania is doing our community a great service by presenting work which gives us an insight into their culture's serious theatrical life.
Daya Theatre's intentions are to show the nature of society in an educational light. It might surprise some people to know that Daya's performances in India were part of a cultural agreement between Romania and India from 1957. 1999 was the beginning of an explosion in cultural exchanges of all kinds from handicrafts, photographic exhibitions, art competitions, dance performances, an Indian feature film shot in Romania, books about India published in Romanian, through to occasions such as when Zubin Mehta conducted the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra at the annual George Enescu International Music Festival in Bucharest. The new century seems to be celebrating cultural diversity, pointing towards a more hopeful world.
Despite the director's throwaway line, I suspect we will not hate Ionesco, but find we appreciate and respect him in The Chairs.
The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco
Daya Theatre Company, Romania
Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre
Tuesday to Thursday February 14-16, 7.30pm
Tickets: $32 full, $28 concession and Festival card holders, $10 students
Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700
© Frank McKone, Canberra
What can she mean? Eugene Ionesco, who wrote the play in 1952, is after all Romania's most famous playwright, though he did from his mid-twenties live and work in France. Simion is among Romania's busiest directors, concentrating on The Chairs twice a day in Bucharest and having previously taken the production to India for the Francophone Festival in 2004.
According to Simion, a founder of the Compania de teatru "D'AYA" as an experimental student theatre group in 1999, "D'aya" means "just like that" and "is a simple name for simple theatre". The Chairs may seem simple, but there's a lot more to it than a superficial view might suggest. Considering Simion's success over the years, taking the company to theatre festivals in Egypt and Italy, her dislike of Ionesco must surely be disingenuous.
In The Chairs, an old couple decide they would like to pass on to humanity what they have learned in their long lives. They invite a vast crowd of people, none of whom come. All the Old Man (Ioana Marchidan) and the Old Woman (Adriana Trandafir) can do is speak to a vast array of empty chairs.
So demoralised that they can't go on living, the old couple leave the revelation of their message to an Orator they have hired (Gabriel Fatu) - but he turns out to be deaf-mute. Well, maybe such a black view of the very ordinary lives we mostly lead is enough to hate Ionesco for. But does this mean his play is too horrible to watch?
On the contrary, there is a special fascination in the old couple's dilemma. Rather than depending on speech, Daya Theatre have devised a "modern and a new interpretation" based in movement and comedy which means the "end of our performance is not a conclusion. It's a choice."
What we can expect to see is strong theatre from that part of the world, the eastern end of Old Europe, where cultural diversity has been both a blessing and a cause of conflict for so long, and so has a tradition of art in all forms which entertains while exposing realities. It is this tradition which gives depth to what at first seems simple.
For the actors, then, there is a deep satisfaction in presenting The Chairs. Trandafir says "my role in the play is based upon movement and so it was difficult to assume it at my age. But I believed in this work and I made it. Now I'm happy." Fatu explains "In our performance the director's vision surpasses the one of the author, giving an open end to the play".
And so, we can reinterpret Simion's concern about Ionesco. When he was writing in the years soon after World War II, at the time when the proliferation of nuclear weapons was the order of the day, it was not surprising that his play had a doomsday feeling about it. Politically, Romania and its neighbours were oppressive and dangerous places for original thinkers and activists. For the new generation of the 1990s Ionesco's cynicism and the philosophy of absurdism - that life actually has no purpose despite what we would like to believe - must have been something to hate. How else could things change for the better?
The irony is, of course, that Simion admits that Ionesco's "vision of life is real". She at the same time proves him wrong in the very creation of art on stage, performing his play with a new purpose which inspires the actors, and will surely inspire us in the audience.
This is the special value of our National Multicultural Festival, growing, once again under Dominic Mico's direction, far beyond a folkloric celebration. The Embassy of Romania is doing our community a great service by presenting work which gives us an insight into their culture's serious theatrical life.
Daya Theatre's intentions are to show the nature of society in an educational light. It might surprise some people to know that Daya's performances in India were part of a cultural agreement between Romania and India from 1957. 1999 was the beginning of an explosion in cultural exchanges of all kinds from handicrafts, photographic exhibitions, art competitions, dance performances, an Indian feature film shot in Romania, books about India published in Romanian, through to occasions such as when Zubin Mehta conducted the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra at the annual George Enescu International Music Festival in Bucharest. The new century seems to be celebrating cultural diversity, pointing towards a more hopeful world.
Despite the director's throwaway line, I suspect we will not hate Ionesco, but find we appreciate and respect him in The Chairs.
The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco
Daya Theatre Company, Romania
Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre
Tuesday to Thursday February 14-16, 7.30pm
Tickets: $32 full, $28 concession and Festival card holders, $10 students
Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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