The Vicar of Dibley by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, directed by Jasan Savage. UC Players at Gallery Café, University of Canberra Fridays and Saturdays November 16 December 15 (6.45pm dinner and show). Bookings essential 6201 2645.
The meal was tasty and very filling, while the show was like the curate’s egg - good in parts.
Act 1 between mains and dessert is The Easter Bunny (April 1996). Act 2 is the 1999 Christmas Day special. Translation from small screen to stage is not very successful, mainly because short scenes of dialogue with little physical action and almost no plot can work with Dawn French in close-up but have much less impact at even a short distance on a live stage.
Act 1 suffers particularly, except for Stella Wilkie’s performance of Letitia Cropley whose death was quite something to watch. Act 2 is more successful because it has a focus in the nativity play within the play, in which Tse Yee Tah made the farcical birth of Alice’s real baby during the performance of the “Greatest story ever told” very funny indeed.
Marie Carroll faced a difficult task in representing the Vicar Geraldine, as played by French until Geraldine’s marriage and final show only last Christmas to a TV audience in Britain of 11.4 million. She looked the part, made a fair fist of the character and held the action together as well as the script allowed, but neither she nor the cast in general could match the crisp timing of the television shows, especially enhanced by snappy editing. It would take a much more sophisticated technical setup than is possible in the UC Café to create that effect.
Among the other actors I thought Richard Anderson as the earthy farmer Owen Newitt was best, though none let the team down. Costumes were effective, though I was a little surprised at a sound track including American Gospel singing which to me was out of place compared with the deliberately very English church choral music used in the original TV shows.
In the end, for me, this is ethnic English material in the centuries-long tradition of poking fun at their institutions like the Church (Anglican, of course). The opening night audience had a social night out, quite enjoyed themselves, were generally old enough to recognise the 1990s references and appreciate passable representations of characters they knew. Otherwise, I would have preferred Australian material, but perhaps there is not enough on television to guarantee an audience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 16 November 2007
Tuesday 6 November 2007
2007: Talking Heads by Alan Bennett
Talking Heads by Alan Bennett: Her Big Chance performed by Sigrid Thornton and Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet performed by Brenda Blethyn. Directed by Braham Murray at Canberra Theatre, November 6-7.
Thornton and Blethyn deservedly attracted an almost full house in the big theatre on opening night. For me the most exciting aspect of the evening was watching these actors live on stage, after having seen them so much on film and television. Making these intimate 40 minute monologues communicate successfully across a large auditorium was hard work indeed, a challenge which both performers met more than admirably.
From the 1987 BBC TV Talking Heads 1 series, the bit-part but oh so professional actress, Lesley, is I think more difficult to play today than Miss Fozzard from the 1998 Talking Heads 2 series. Bennett was less forgiving, much less empathetic towards Lesley than Miss Fozzard, and I guess that the decade between writing these characters was a period of developing greater psychological insight and skill at integrating the dark and the comic line by line. The effect was that Her Big Chance seemed more dated, especially from a woman’s perspective, while Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet remained more universal despite the character belonging to the kind of old-fashioned British suburban culture which I can remember from my childhood there 60 years ago.
It was therefore a good decision to have Thornton play the first half, for which she received applause fully appreciative of her skill in bit by bit revealing the unwillingness of Lesley to recognise her limitations, or how she was actually being used by a sleazy team to make a soft-porn film in contrast to her image of herself as a proper actor. Thornton, of course, had to create Lesley, Lesley’s idea of the character Travis she plays in the film, and all the members of the film crew from the German director Gunther to the dogsbody roadie Scott, telling a story that possibly is all a lie, maybe entirely Lesley’s fantasy. There were laughs, but often Lesley’s shallow understanding made us laugh at her, putting her down rather than creating empathy for a sad soul.
In the second half, Blethyn’s Miss Fozzard was a laugh a minute, but we recognised her failings and appreciated that we, like her, often miss the point, don’t quite realise what’s really going on around us. And so we felt quite uplifted as Miss Fozzard, in a weird way, does find her feet in her relationship with a kinky chiropodist. This gave us an ending to the evening which was greeted with huge enthusiasm, with both performers, united on stage, receiving several curtain calls, followed by a long queue in the foyer for them to sign programs. This was excellent celebratory theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thornton and Blethyn deservedly attracted an almost full house in the big theatre on opening night. For me the most exciting aspect of the evening was watching these actors live on stage, after having seen them so much on film and television. Making these intimate 40 minute monologues communicate successfully across a large auditorium was hard work indeed, a challenge which both performers met more than admirably.
From the 1987 BBC TV Talking Heads 1 series, the bit-part but oh so professional actress, Lesley, is I think more difficult to play today than Miss Fozzard from the 1998 Talking Heads 2 series. Bennett was less forgiving, much less empathetic towards Lesley than Miss Fozzard, and I guess that the decade between writing these characters was a period of developing greater psychological insight and skill at integrating the dark and the comic line by line. The effect was that Her Big Chance seemed more dated, especially from a woman’s perspective, while Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet remained more universal despite the character belonging to the kind of old-fashioned British suburban culture which I can remember from my childhood there 60 years ago.
It was therefore a good decision to have Thornton play the first half, for which she received applause fully appreciative of her skill in bit by bit revealing the unwillingness of Lesley to recognise her limitations, or how she was actually being used by a sleazy team to make a soft-porn film in contrast to her image of herself as a proper actor. Thornton, of course, had to create Lesley, Lesley’s idea of the character Travis she plays in the film, and all the members of the film crew from the German director Gunther to the dogsbody roadie Scott, telling a story that possibly is all a lie, maybe entirely Lesley’s fantasy. There were laughs, but often Lesley’s shallow understanding made us laugh at her, putting her down rather than creating empathy for a sad soul.
In the second half, Blethyn’s Miss Fozzard was a laugh a minute, but we recognised her failings and appreciated that we, like her, often miss the point, don’t quite realise what’s really going on around us. And so we felt quite uplifted as Miss Fozzard, in a weird way, does find her feet in her relationship with a kinky chiropodist. This gave us an ending to the evening which was greeted with huge enthusiasm, with both performers, united on stage, receiving several curtain calls, followed by a long queue in the foyer for them to sign programs. This was excellent celebratory theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 1 November 2007
2007: Lovepuke by Duncan Sarkies
Lovepuke by Duncan Sarkies, directed by Naomi Brouwer for The Street Theatre and ANU Drama Department at The Street, November 1-3.
I thoroughly enjoyed this very stylish production of a highly stylised short satire on sex.
A lightweight piece from a literary standpoint, published in Sarkies’ native New Zealand in Eleven Young Playwrights (1994), Lovepuke shows its age and the youth of its writer at that time. The lavatory humour (the ‘puke’ side) and the sexual activities of the eight mixed pairs (the ‘love’ side) probably belong nowadays to a younger group than the early 20-somethings that seemed to be represented here. Still that didn’t stop an ageing fader like me recalling the twists and turns of youth.
But the play could have failed without a director and cast who so clearly understood a style which, if one is looking for a literary reference, has a distant cousin in Dario Fo and even a cousin once or twice removed in commedia. The detail of body language, facial expression and nicely exaggerated voices kept the drama alive. Every action and spoken line produced an ironic commentary on the conventions of love and the exchange of bodily fluids. Every actor played up the outward characteristics of each stock personality just enough to make us laugh at, but not too much so as to stop us from laughing with, the character.
Cast members Thomas Connell (Kevin), Byron Fay (Ivan), Cara Irvine (Louise), Jasmin Natterer (Hermione), Aaron Ridgway (Glen), John-Paul Santucci (Nathan), Virginia Savage (Marissa) and Carol Whitman (Janice) all deserve high praise. All current or recent ANU students, they have demonstrated the value of The Street Theatre’s partnership with the ANU Drama Department.
However, the season seems to me to have been too short. This production should be seen by college students as a model for drama students, as well as being great entertainment for the much larger number of young adults than could be accommodated in three nights in The Street Studio.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I thoroughly enjoyed this very stylish production of a highly stylised short satire on sex.
A lightweight piece from a literary standpoint, published in Sarkies’ native New Zealand in Eleven Young Playwrights (1994), Lovepuke shows its age and the youth of its writer at that time. The lavatory humour (the ‘puke’ side) and the sexual activities of the eight mixed pairs (the ‘love’ side) probably belong nowadays to a younger group than the early 20-somethings that seemed to be represented here. Still that didn’t stop an ageing fader like me recalling the twists and turns of youth.
But the play could have failed without a director and cast who so clearly understood a style which, if one is looking for a literary reference, has a distant cousin in Dario Fo and even a cousin once or twice removed in commedia. The detail of body language, facial expression and nicely exaggerated voices kept the drama alive. Every action and spoken line produced an ironic commentary on the conventions of love and the exchange of bodily fluids. Every actor played up the outward characteristics of each stock personality just enough to make us laugh at, but not too much so as to stop us from laughing with, the character.
Cast members Thomas Connell (Kevin), Byron Fay (Ivan), Cara Irvine (Louise), Jasmin Natterer (Hermione), Aaron Ridgway (Glen), John-Paul Santucci (Nathan), Virginia Savage (Marissa) and Carol Whitman (Janice) all deserve high praise. All current or recent ANU students, they have demonstrated the value of The Street Theatre’s partnership with the ANU Drama Department.
However, the season seems to me to have been too short. This production should be seen by college students as a model for drama students, as well as being great entertainment for the much larger number of young adults than could be accommodated in three nights in The Street Studio.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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