2012: Pearl Verses The World by Sally Murphy

Pearl Verses The World by Sally Murphy.  Jigsaw Theatre Company directed by Justine Campbell, performed by Kate Hosking and Chrissie Shaw.  At The Courtyard Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre, May 19 – June 3, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
assisted by Stephen McKone Hassell
May 19

“If we say there is a mystery, then that might mean people would want to see the show,” suggested Stephen, age 6½. 

But there’s more than one mystery, I suggest.  What about what happened to Pearl’s Dad?  “And, how Granny got back stage after disappearing!”  And why is it that Pearl is in a ‘group of only one’?  “And why Mrs Brough, Pearl’s teacher makes Pearl write rhyming poetry even though she doesn’t rhyme?”

“And also,” asked Stephen, “Why is Granny in a plastic tube?  That was such an odd show!”

It was a good show, says Stephen, but it was a bit late starting and it had one boring bit in the middle when you could hear footsteps and nothing else.  “And it was a good show because they had lots of nice poetry in it and lots of good songs.”

I think it is a good show, from a grandfather’s point of view, because it may help children to appreciate their elders.  Even the teachers, who at first Pearl thinks are a bit batty, come through in the end as they respond sensitively to Grandma’s death.

And finally, though he doesn’t want it to be published here, the proof of the value of the show is that Stephen has just made up a ‘spinnetry’ poem, “just like Pearl loved to spin and make poetry at the same time.” 

Highly recommended.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Macbeth by William Shakespeare.  Bell Shakespeare directed by Peter Evans.  Canberra Theatre Centre: The Playhouse May 18-June 2, 2012 (Melbourne Arts Centre: Playhouse June 7-23)

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 18

In keeping with Macbeth’s early 17th Century origins, Peter Evans’ production is full of ‘conceit’.  It makes the play intellectually interesting, opening up ideas about the psychology of a developing dictator, rather than presenting the more usual simplistic murder story.  For the first time in my experience, we see Macbeth as a character in keeping with the same author’s Hamlet.

Peter Evans’ conceit is not cleverness for its own sake, though not all of his ideas work.  I assume, too, that my comments also go to Kate Mulvaney, dramaturg for this production, as well as for Evans’ 2011 production of Julius Caesar. 

Where style and habitual conventions or devices take over from internally felt images and actions, the drama loses its impact.  In this production, part of the conceit is about the illusion of theatre.

As in his Caesar, Evans wanted to make clear when an actor is entering the performing space, and leaving it.  His habit is to have actors briefly visibly freeze as they cross the line of demarcation.  In Macbeth this is done only occasionally, in favour of more often having actors freeze in situ at the completion of a scene, then rise and walk purposefully, perhaps as if partially still in character, to the rear, and exit left or right in half light.

I was fortunate to see the play in the company of an old friend, always willing to tell me what he thought and felt, but not a literary or theatre ‘buff’.  For him, these entrance and exit devices broke the illusion, were confusing, and seemed pointless.  I could see the point – that what we are seeing is a fiction, a work of art – but I understood my friend’s reaction.  He saw artifice.

The character of the Witch (Lizzie Schebesta) was interesting to me as a link between artifice and art.  Her black line dividing her physical form, and her appearance in roles like the Boy, became intriguing and gradually established that witchcraft was reality in the life and times of Macbeth.  The highlight of this device for me was at Banquo’s banquet, where the ghost disappeared as he sat on the Witch’s knee, then rose horribly to confront Macbeth.  Here was the degree of melding of intellectual conceit with emotional effect that I found myself looking for in this production.

The cutting, trimming and therefore shaping of the play to focus on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth gave Dan Spielman and Kate Mulvaney every opportunity for bravura performances, and they both thoroughly fulfilled my expectations. 

The reprise of Lady Macbeth’s hiccups in her final desperate scene must have been one of the hardest things to act, but it worked.  Here was the signal to remind us of her deeply felt insecurity, in fact panic, which had driven her sexually and through the horrors of murder.  This was an extraordinary performance by Mulvaney.

And for me the later part of the play – the murder of Macduff’s wife and children, the turnaround of Macduff’s decision to confront Macbeth, and the final swordfight – has previously seemed to be almost gratuitous.  The play really ends when Lady Macbeth dies. 

But here, Ivan Donato used the deliberately styled movement which characterised all the characters in this production very effectively to make us believe in the horrifying mistaken judgement he had made in leaving his castle at the mercy of the now completely uncontrollable Macbeth.  And, though earlier I had found Macbeth’s twisted body shapes too artificial, in these last scenes Spielman showed us how his wife and lover’s failure to hold things together, for him as much as for herself, left him grasping at every imaginable straw, unable to stop the inevitable.  It was quite extraordinary to feel almost sorry for this murderous dictator when he finally received his just deserts.  It reminded me of the obvious modern case – Muamar Gaddafi – murdered in the street without the trial which might have revealed something of his belief in witchcraft.

If not Bell Shakespeare’s greatest presentation of the Bard’s consummate art (I preferred Much Ado About Nothing for example), this Macbeth is a strong contender.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: When Dad Married Fury by David Williamson

When Dad Married Fury by David Williamson.  Directed by Sandra Bates.  Designer: Marissa Dale-Johnson; Lighting Designer: Peter Neufeld.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, May 9-June 16, 2012

Cheree Cassidy as Fury

and

Nick Tate as Alan (Dad)

Photos: Steve Lunam

Warren Jones, Lenore Smith, Jamie Oxenbould, Di Adams

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 10

The key to Williamson’s latest play, from which both the comedy and the philosophy grow, is about the irrational way we human animals are each capable of maintaining quite diverse and even opposite beliefs all at once. 

One would think from the simple rostra-block set, stage floor and backdrop completely covered in colourful banknotes, with a back projection in dangerous-looking red of a tumbling graph, that we would see another Williamson comedy, this time of money matters and manners.  And so we do, but, I think, with a new empathetic understanding.  I have often felt previously, except perhaps in Heretic and the trio of ‘Conferencing’ plays, that Williamson has stood strictly apart from his characters.  This is good for neat well-made plays which satirise social foibles, the success of which is obvious from Williamson’s long career.

When 'Dad' married 'Fury', however, his children’s monetary shock is to be expected, but the disjunctions of personal and political assumptions turn this into less satire and more substantial comedy.  It certainly makes a great evening out, and with a lasting effect.

The character, and the actor, who epitomises lasting effect is Cheree Cassidy playing Fury.  I won’t say too much about the plot, considering this is early in the first run of a new play, and surprise is an important element of its success on stage, but it’s hard to go past an anti-government American Tea Party profitable business woman who takes her religion seriously.  Her  belief in the ethics of Jesus brings what otherwise is no more than a cynical absurdist chaos to a satisfactory conclusion.

As a callow youth I wondered how Bernard Shaw could have written the characters of Major Barbara and Saint Joan with such sympathetic understanding when he was an avowed atheist, and now I see David Williamson, in his Fury, showing the same appreciation of his character’s sincerity.  As the play shows, and as Cheree Cassidy’s acting quality demonstrates, sincerity is nothing to do with simple determination.  It is about following through ethically, however surprising that may turn out to be even to yourself.

Sandra Bates’ directing of the play made for a too-slow beginning, in my view, although in an odd way the result of this was that the sudden surprise just before interval had maybe even more shock value than it might have had with a smoother start. 

The characters of Dad’s two sons were not immediately well established by Warren Jones (Ian) and Jamie Oxenbould (Ben) and so their wives, Sue – Lenore Smith – and Laura – Di Adams – seemed for too long to be cardboard cutouts of a financial lawyer and a social activist.  This was particularly unfortunate when Laura’s Mum, played by Lorraine Bayly, was left out, literally up against the wall, as Laura tried to help her mother through her father’s suicide.  We needed this scene to be played close up in the intimate almost in-the-round Ensemble Theatre to give Bayly the position of strength as a character which matches her role at the end.

When Dad  (Alan) appeared,  it took Nick Tate a little while to generate the required spark, but we had no doubt, theatrically at least, that we were in for an exciting ride from then on, even if we didn’t know where we were going.  Cheree Cassidy’s entrance jumped us up several staircases, laughing all the way while wondering if we might not fall off.  The quietness of the last scene then became not just a neat ending, but the right mood to give depth to the feeling that these characters, and maybe even ourselves, can be better people if we work to put ourselves together properly.

Conclusion?  David Williamson is still a force to be reckoned with and When Dad Married Fury is well worth seeing.  And it should be interesting to see what ‘lasting effect’ it might have if it plays in New York.

Di Adams and Lorraine Bayly

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell

L-R Helen McFarlane as Sonja, Duncan Ley as Pete
Rob de Fries as Leon, Lainie Hart as Jane

Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell.  Canberra Repertory Theatre directed by Ross McGregor, May 4-19, 2012

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 4

I’ve spent some time working out why this production is very good but not better.  Of course, Bovell’s writing is, in itself, quite fascinating and, I think, better in this original stage play than in the later adaptation as the film Lantana.  On stage the work is more focussed and concentrated, without the distractions of realistic filming.

From this thinking comes the explanation I’m looking for.  Ross McGregor, in an interview in the Canberra Times, said that his intention was to use only four actors, as was done in the original production (1996) and again in the 2011 revival at Griffin Theatre (at The Stables, Kings Cross, Sydney).  However, and I guess perhaps because Canberra Rep is a community theatre group, McGregor’s auditions attracted enough good actors for him to decide to use separate actors for the ‘extra’ parts in Act 2.

So we have the two married couples in Act 1 – Rob de Fries as Leon with Helen McFarlane as Sonja, and Lainie Hart as Jane with Duncan Ley as Pete.  Guess what happened from the picture above.  All were excellent in their roles, using the stylisation of the set, the symbolic use of dance and the techniques of storytelling to great effect.

In Act 2, Ley appears briefly as the innocent man in the bar whom Valerie – Bridgette Black – insanely screams at, while de Fries is in Leon’s professional role as the policeman who interviews Valerie’s husband John after she disappears.  John is played by Zach Raffan.  Jane and Pete’s next-door neighbour Nick, who threw the missing Valerie’s shoe into the vacant block opposite, is played by Sam Hannan-Morrow, under police interrogation.  The other two characters, originally from Leon’s story of the man, Neil, who left his brogue shoes on the beach before apparently drowning himself, and the girl he believed would marry him, Sarah, are played by Raoul Cramer and Eliza Bell.  To complete the plot, of course, Sarah is the patient with relationship problems being treated by clinical psychologist Valerie, who has her own psychological problem, being afraid of men because of childhood abuse – at least according to John.

If you consider the cast of Lantana, all 32 of them playing many roles that are not even mentioned in Speaking in Tongues, you can see that McGregor’s version of Act 2 is more like the film version, while Act 1 is played closer to Bovell’s original conception on stage.  Using only four actors, in Act 2 the story told by Leon to Sonja (about the story told to Leon by Neil when they met on the beach) and the story told by Jane to Pete (about what she saw Nick do and what she did in response) are explored and interpreted as if each of these four are trying to imagine what really happened. 

So, for example, we have an actor playing Leon, and Leon interviewing John.  After all, Leon has told Pete that he is a policeman, but is he really and does he actually interview John, or is it Pete who imagines Leon interviewing the husband of the woman who has disappeared (which apparently did really happen, because Pete has seen the newspaper report, not just heard about it in Jane’s story)?  Or again, perhaps Pete just imagines that the woman who screamed at him in the bar was the woman who disappeared.  There are questions of this kind about all the stories told in Act 2.

I wasn’t conscious of all this thinking while watching the play last night, but I felt that the intensity and the grip of the drama which was so strong in the first Act seemed to dissipate in the second.  And an odd thing was that when Ley appeared, and de Fries appeared, my attention was suddenly grabbed again.  And it was a disappointment that McFarlane and Hart only reappeared for the curtain call after such a strong showing in Act 1.

So, though I certainly recommend this production, with its interesting set design (you can watch the video of its development in the foyer during interval), I wonder if it might still have been better to have kept to Bovell’s original use of only four actors.

© Frank McKone, Canberra