Apologies, The Trial & Namatjira

It seems that more than not when I post something on this blog, it starts with an apology for a lack of updates. Sorry about that, maybe I should just stop promising these things! Unfortunately for you readers, it’s been a very busy few weeks, between the Sydney Fringe Festival, This Is Not Art Festival (which you should definitely check out the results of at Applespiel's blog - you can download the show we did... awesome. http://applespiel.wordpress.com/), and just a general amount of crazy things happening in our personal lives, that things have been put on the back burner here at The Perf.

What I offer to make up for it is a quick wrap of a couple of shows that I’ve seen lately. I might get around to doing a closer analysis of other seasons as well as post my long-awaited opinions on the Belvoir Downstairs changes, but I guess I have to start learning to make fewer promises.

The Trial – STC

Let’s put it out there – I’ve been excited about this production since it was announced last year. More Ewen Leslie in my life can only be a good thing. When the production rolled around however, I realised that there was even more amazing acting to be had with a fantastic ensemble of John Gaden, Peter Houghton, Rita Kalnejais, Belinda McClory, Hamish Michael and Igor Sas. I mean, they’re all stars in their own right really, so it was pretty exciting to have them all together, and this was really what I took away from the production. I thought the production was strong, and vividly created the increasingly maddening world of Joseph K. Unfortunately it dragged and there were definitely times when I dropped out of it and started thinking about other things. However, the further I get away from the show, the more I simply remember the fantastic performances and intelligent stage design. The final stage trick, whereby what was previously thought to be a backstage area was revealed through a dropping of curtains to create an almost cathedral like feel in what is not one of Sydney’s most giant theatres, was quite an achievement and more than brought me back into the world of the play. I left impressed. From what I hear though, others did not, let me know why!

Namatjira - Belvoir

This show made me feels some things very strongly. The strongest of which was a sense of absolute regret for not seeing Ngapartji Ngapartji. It must have been a phenomenal show. Trevor Jamieson is amazing. He is amazing physically, he is an amazing storyteller, he has amazing comic timing and he is amazingly honest. What this translates to is an incredibly engaging performance. For the two hours of the show you are absolutely in his hand, following along as he recreates the story of Albert Namatjira, Australia’s first Aboriginal citizen, and one of our country’s finest painters. The content, which Scott Rankin has done an amazing job of synthesizing, is absolutely astounding and depressing at the same time. All the things that you go into the show expecting will make you happy turn out to be sad. The fact that was the first Aboriginal citizen is countered by the fact that this was simply allowed so that the government could tax him, and it also placed him between a rock and bottle shop in his community, where his newfound ability to buy alcohol (a privilege only extended to citizens) made him a lackey to the many people who saw him as their uncle. His meeting with the Queen is countered by a radio report of his visit to Taronga Zoo which describes how the other animals got very excited at having a creature that was closer to them in their midst. The fact that his artworks at one point epitomised the height of Australian art culture is obscured by his inability to buy land that would allow him to support his community. In fact all of his achievements are left marred by the revelation that despite all his fame he died poor, and unhappy. It is these paradoxes of his life that Rankin has so effectively highlighted and Jamieson masterfully brings out, putting forward a few paradoxes of his own. One particularly memorable moment was when Jamieson explains that Aboriginal practice of leaving behind elders who have grown incapable of keeping up with the tribe. He doesn’t pass judgement on the practice, but instead turns the moral question onto the audience asking, “Would you take them in? Surely, if an old Aboriginal person knocked on your door asking for help at 2am you’d welcome them into your home.” However, Jamieson’s perfect manner of audience interaction is impossible to adequately describe here, instead, I just recommend you get along to this show in its final weeks if you haven’t already.

It would also be remiss of me to not to mention Derek Lynch, who does a superb job of playing all the characters around Jamieson. His turn as the queen is particularly memorable, and it gave me an odd jolt of patriotism knowing that I live in a country where an Aboriginal man can portray our female head of state with no more recourse than hysterical laughter from the audience.

Perhaps even more exciting than the show itself however, is the community project around it. Check out the details RIGHT HERE.

Hope that’s enough to keep you interested for a while. Hopefully have more for you soon.

Oh, and Applespiel have a show tomorrow night, it’s free, in Sydney, and a whole lot of fun. Check out the details here:http://www.performancespace.com.au/?p=4904 We're very excited to be presented by Performance Space.

Hope all is well!

Simon

Review: The Promise

Written by Aleksei Arbuzov
Directed by Simon Stone

Hype is a dangerous thing, a poisonous thing. It is seductive and works within the imagination first of all; a few sentences or a picture is enough to get it started. There in the imagination it simmers; the words of praise repeat themselves, the picture grows bigger, 3D in fact, and then extends to represent the entire breadth of one’s desire. But however perfectly it manifests in the brain, it isn’t satisfying simply to think on it. Despite trawling through the vast pools of information in the internet or library for more snippets or glimpses of its true nature, once that is exhausted you are left in the same position. Unfulfilled. Hungry. At this point it moves into the real world and becomes about sharing the hype externally, spreading it onto close friends or colleagues. Mining them for information, exciting them, watching them build their own fantasy and letting it inform your own. But still this is not enough, you’re still hungry, you just have company. Hype works insidiously to take over personal consciousness, until every waking moment is empty unless satisfied, for better or worse, by whatever is being hyped up.

For me, Simon Stone had a lot of hype. This is a director who at 24 is a member of one of “melbourne’s most vital new companies” (Alison) The Hayloft Project, who, after winning the $20000 George Fairfax Memorial Award in 2008, this year alone has directed 3xSisters, Spring Awakening, Leaves of Glass and The Promise, with The Only Child set to premiere at Downstairs Belvoir in September/October. He is in vogue, described variously as “brilliant”, “classical” and “dynamic” with an “eye for a memorable theatrical image”. I pored over the reviews of The Hayloft Project, excited that such a young company could be doing such intellectual and consistently acclaimed work, gagging to actually SEE something, after missing Spring Awakening at B Sharp in 2008. (which my co blogger Simon raved about to me). Finally, (and surprisingly) my opportunity came with The Promise upstairs at Belvoir, featuring two actors I greatly admire in Alison Bell (Moving Target) and Ewen Leslie (War of the Roses, The Serpent’s Teeth) and a third closely aligned with Hayloft, Chris Ryan. So, obviously… well come on, wouldn’t you be, I was keen keen keen keen for the show.



The Promise is written by Aleksei Arbuzov, a post thaw Soviet playwright who, in this particular work, focuses on a relationship formed between three teenagers during the grueling siege of Leningrad from 1941- 44. Then in a series of filmic scenes, follows the development of this triangle over the passage of time, first at the end of the war, then months, years later as they try to reconcile their fevered teenage dreams with their relatively comfortable existences. Steady jobs. Marriage. It is a work concerned with friendship, love and longing.

Simon Stone stages it on Adam Gardnir’s revolve, a raised wooden square construction which the actors appear from under and are turned around upon. Behind this, as the play progresses, various household items are placed opening up a new location, softly lit by lampshades. But the set is plain, and underused. The revolve adds little to illuminate the changing dynamics of the characters, more often than not serving to obscure our view of them, with the back wall of upstairs Belvoir getting many of the most powerful lines. The lighting after a promising start of strobe explosions and thin beams of warm light through a hazer, descends into a energy draining slew of long scene change blackouts which kill any tension or interest in the way the play moves through time. Even Hamish Michael’s gorgeous sound design couldn’t cover these deathly pauses in the story, which completely undercut the filmic nature of the text. Further than this there were TWO intervals, which further slowed down my engagement with the performance. I could say that the intervals were conceptually valid in that it broke up the acts, and divided the three distinct periods of the character’s lives, but really… It felt more like an opportunity for a set or costume change, (however miniscule or ineffectual they were) and purely practical rather than creatively interesting. The performances are strong, Ewen Leslie was by turns invigorating and desperate, Alison Bell passionately committed and Chris Ryan has a natural warmth and gift for comic timing. But even with these brilliant actors the piece is overly sentimental and never approaches the political undertones of the play’s setting, seemingly whitewashing it with romance and mateship. So if I can’t place the blame on the actors, or purely on the lights and set, I suppose I have to lay it on the director.

This for me is the danger inherent to hype. I thought the work was bland and after having read and built up an ideal image of perfect actor/adaptor/director Simon Stone, this was a severe let down. I saw no memorable theatrical images, nor anything of the brilliant staging I was led to believe in. Perhaps The Promise suffered for my expectations, maybe it was never going to live up to my imagination, but I don’t think that is the case. Other shows where I have indulged in the hype have far exceeded my expectations, the often used as an example War of the Roses and Pacciti Company’s Finale being examples of this. Given the sheer amount of hype Simon Stone has floating around him (the biggest rumour perhaps being the SMH’s suggestion
that he’s in line to fill the gap Neil Armfield is leaving at Company B’s artistic director), I thought that like the others I would be more than satisfied after seeing The Promise. In fact I was disappointed and not a little disillusioned. It’s left me with mixed feelings regarding The Only Child at downstairs Belvoir, which I will see, if only to compare a Hayloft project work, with a pure Simon Stone work like The Promise.

Has anybody else had any experience like this, or indeed an experience like this with Simon Stone? I’d love to hear your thoughts, however depressing they are.

Mark