Winter’s Discontent written and performed by William Zappa, with Andrea Close, at The Street Theatre, June 18 – July 3, 2010, 7.30pm.
Reviewed June 18 by Frank McKone
A mathematician asked me would this play be “theatre for theatricals”?
When
the line “An actor prepares” was made prominent without any mention of
Stanislavsky, I might have thought “yes” in response to my mathematical
friend except that to see Winter’s Discontent as being limited to those with theatrical know-how would be to miss the point and misrepresent the play.
It is about an actor – Robert Winter – preparing (to play the role of Thénardier, the inn-keeper in Les Miserables,
for which Zappa has won awards), but it could as easily be about a
mathematician for whom working out a proof which has baffled others is
as necessary to his or her sense of self as acting is for a serious
performer. In each case there is technique, commitment, stress in the
face of failure, wonder and beauty in success. This is art, essential
to human life.
Winter’s Discontent works at several different levels.
It
is a technical display of Zappa’s acting skills which in themselves are
fascinating to watch. Seeing and hearing his fine control of voice,
movement and facial expression can be compared with being at a Richard
Tognetti concert. For the theatrically savvy, technique may be enough
to satisfy. But for the wider audience there is more to come.
It
is a carefully crafted script, in which a small seemingly insignificant
mystery (an airmail letter) grows into a point of emotional climax in
Robert Winter’s life, which he has to resolve when the “beginner’s call”
takes him out of his dressing room as “the House is open and the stage
is live”. The backstage language is opened up for a non-technical
audience to understand, because it is used in the context of Winter’s
experience. The dramatic structure is conventional, engaging the
audience in an empathetic concern for the character. Will he be able to
face his audience while carrying the weight of feeling that he has
failed his own son?
At this level, some may feel the
play is too contrived, but there is still more. William Zappa really is
an actor. It is hard not to imagine that he has had to face up to
something like the horrifying experience that he has written for his
character, Robert Winter. Indeed, in his acknowledgements, he offers
“special thanks to Asha Zappa for inspiring, and putting up with an
absentee father”. This is the very fault that Robert Winter – an actor
always away from home – believes is the cause of his son’s suicide. Is
it not possible that Zappa’s play has had to “go on” despite something
awful happening off stage?
Now this play and this
performance becomes a matter of extraordinary bravery. And now it opens
up for any kind of audience our feelings about things that so often
must be done – for duty’s sake, for financial survival, for the sake of
someone else’s mental or physical survival, for an ideal, indeed even
for art’s sake – even though one’s circumstances seem to make “going on”
impossible.
I can only conclude by encouraging mathematicians and anyone else with a human heart to experience Winter’s Discontent.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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