Too Giant an Undertaking

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely

A complex, wordy play about the inner machinations of the Australian Labor Party in the early 80s may seem like a risky choice for the first outing of new Belvoir Artistic Director, Eamon Flack, and it is a risk that fails to pay off.

Written by Australia’s Stephen Sewell, The Blind Giant is Dancing follows Allen Fitzgerald, an ambitious member of the ALP who is plotting to overthrow the capitalist right of the party and lead Australia into a brave new democratic socialist world. All the while, Allen is grappling with a failing marriage to a Jewish feminist who has taken a female lover (from the Liberal party) and a staunchly Catholic father who has worked the mines all his life. Who’s confused already?

Adding to the minefield that is the premise, the play jumps between scenes with increasing pace, to the point where some of the scenes in the second act are a mere two lines long. Despite this, the run time of the whole shermozzle is over three hours.

Faced with these challenges, Flack and the Belvoir team have given us a production that tries hard but fails to deliver a clear message.

Set Designer, Dale Ferguson, has presented us with an interesting concept, working closely with Lighting Designer, Verity Hampson, to place a floor-to-ceiling LED light wall centre stage, leaving the remainder of Belvoir’s black box stage empty. Unlit, the wall provides a transparent backdrop for the main scenes, behind which can be seen the upcoming actors. When alight, the wall replicates the sun drenched high-rise windows of Sydney’s CBD. The device is also used to project the setting at the start of each scene (useful given there is very little else to differentiate the surroundings). Some audience members may find the blinding they receive when the rig is fully lit a bit hard to take, but on the whole it’s not a bad design effort.

Set changes (such as they are) are managed by the actors in what is becoming a bit of a theatrical trend. But I do worry that some of the props the performers are required to carry on and off stage are a trifle unwieldy and there may be some mishaps during the run.

Speaking of the performers, Dan Spielman does well as Allen but could have benefited from a greater sense of purpose. The character has so much backstory that it would be hard for any actor to wrangle it all into their performance, but Spielman doesn’t quite hit the mark. There’s a lot of dialogue delivered but not so much deeper meaning.

Yael Stone as Allen’s wife, Louise, is one of the most convincing characters, and there is definite chemistry between the two (probably because they’re married in real life). The same can’t be said for Zahra Newman who plays Allen’s potential love interest, journalist Rose Draper. Rose speaks in riddles and is deliberately cagey about just what she’s doing here (on stage, in the political mix, flirting with Allen). Unfortunately, Newman’s performance lacks conviction – I’m not sure she knows what Rose is trying to say either.

The strongest performance comes from Geoff Morrell, whose portrayal of Allen’s political target, Michael Wells, is delightfully realistic. His accent is delightfully ocker but he delivers his lines with a subtle sense of power (something which Julia Gillard never quite managed).

To really enjoy this play you need more than a passing understanding of the concepts of socialism, Marxism, capitalism and communism. Sewell is also student of Australian politics, and the script goes into tremendous detail about the operations and direction of the ALP in the 1980s, which for my dad would no doubt be fascinating, since he was involved in the ALP himself at that time. Sadly most of us are not so familiar with party politics, and this makes for a confusing night out.

The other story here is about what it means to be a person – what gives us our identity and how we represent ourselves to others. What does it mean to be a wife? A Catholic? A socialist? A lover? This is a more universally appealing thread, but it gets lost under the weight of the narrative. A fault of the play, sure, but if a decision was made by the creatives to present this as the key message the production may have resonated more strongly. To this end, the scenes between Allen and Louise are a distraction, despite Stone’s performance. Even the climactic moments, which call into question family loyalty and cultural morality, fail to deliver a punch.

This production lacks a clear identity. In the hands of a different director, the play may deliver a powerful message, but Flack seems to have tried too hard to follow each of Sewell’s threads, leaving the audience to puzzle through just what it all means. The play clearly has a special place in his heart, however, and he should be commended for attempting such a tricky piece on his first outing.

Details
Viewed: 16 February 2016 (Preview)
Venue: Belvoir Upstairs Theatre, Surry Hills
Author: Stephen Sewell
Director: Eamon Flack
Production Company: Belvoir

The Secret River Second Time Around

This play does more to 'close the gap' than any Government report ever could

It’s not very often that you have the opportunity to attend a theatrical production that you know is going to be great – actors, directors and scripts can often promise much but significantly under-deliver. However, as I had seen the original season of STC’s The Secret River I knew that the repeat run would make for a brilliant night out. Having previously subjected my bestie to an absolutely traumatic previous theatre experience (Belvoir’s Wizard of Oz), I couldn’t wait to show her that theatre can be both art and entertainment.

The Secret River follows William Thornhill, a London thief transported to New South Wales in the early 1800s. Earning his freedom, Thornhill settles himself and his young family on what he believes to be unclaimed land on the edge of the Hawkesbury River. But the land is already inhabited by the Dharug people. What unfolds is a compelling and at times confronting story that has been played out hundreds of times in our nation’s history.

But it is the creative team who make this production truly memorable. In the same way that Julie Taymor transfigured the cartoon world of Simba in her production of The Lion King, Director, Neil Armfield, and his designers (Set Designer Stephen Curtis, Lighting Designer Mark Howett and Sound Designer Steve Francis) have given us a staging that is both practical and brilliant. The backdrop is at once a towering escarpment and an ancient gum, its branches stretching out of sight. Smouldering sticks dragged over the sandstone-coloured floor give us territories and boundaries, easily erased by childish play. Lighting transports us from river to bank, and the sounds of the bush are recreated by mouth, bucket and spade. This is theatrical play at its best.

Listing the production highlights to my friend – the brilliantly clever design elements, the interweaving musical soundtrack, and the profound performances – I saw her face slowly fall. She politely declined my invitation.

What I failed to understand in my enthusiasm for the production is that I am white. My ancestors were free settlers who built the foundations of what is now Hobart. Sure, there may be some political prisoners in my distant, Irish past, but on the whole, my family have had it pretty good. My friend, however, is descended from the Wiradjuri people, the largest Indigenous Nation within New South Wales. For her, the story of Australian colonisation is not entertainment. It triggers an anger and sorrow that I cannot adequately describe, something she was not keen on bringing to the surface.

Armfield recalls a similar encounter in his program notes, describing how Indigenous actress Ursula Yovich knocked him back twice when he asked her to join the original production. In a letter to Armfield, Yovich wrote:

“The play brings up a lot of hurt. We all know the history, what comes next. The hurt comes from the knowledge that the actions portrayed at the end of the play (although so very long ago) have had a huge domino effect, even to this day… The trauma is so deep that we believe our own worthlessness…”

Yovich did eventually relent and her performance in the first run of this play was superb. One of the reasons behind her change of heart appears to have been the sensitivity she knew Armfield and his team would bring to the production.

The strongest example of this empathetic hand is the voice that playwright Andrew Bovell has given to the Dharug people. In the original and critically acclaimed novel by Kate Grenville, from which the story is taken, the Indigenous people are kept at arm’s length from the reader. We see the events almost entirely through the eyes of Thornhill; a victim of circumstance and class who now has a chance to obtain the status and respect he covets.

In Bovell’s script, the Dharug characters are not only named, but given prominence. They open the play, letting us eavesdrop on a casual fireside conversation. They appear again at regular intervals, giving us some insight as to how they interact with the land and these strangers who have come to claim it. Through these vignettes we see that they are not so different from the whites.

We also see a vision of what could have been, of partnership and shared knowledge, depicted through the actions of the youngest Thornhill, Dick (Toby Challenor/Heath Jelovic), and the ‘first’ river settler, Blackwood (Colin Moody). Dick has yet to be indoctrinated into the world of savages and gentlemen; his innocent, child’s eyes see people who know the secrets of the land and how to work it to their advantage. Blackwood declares that his Indigenous partner is more of a wife to him than his first ever was, and suggests that Thornhill learn the principle of ‘give a little, take a little’.

But this is not a story of triumph over the wilds of the land – this is a war for territory between two tribes and we already know who will be victorious. It is easy to sit back in judgement of these early settlers and criticise their actions, but the beauty of this production is the mirror it holds up to its audience. In Thornhill (played with strength and subtlety by Nathanial Dean) we see how easily a man’s morality can shift when he has something to believe in and defend. Can any of us really say we would have acted differently? More importantly, how little of this story do we actually know?

I hope that this production triggers something in its audience – a guilt, and a profound sense of inadequacy. We should know more about these first people. We should understand their language without the need for surtitles (which I am delighted to report the production does not resort to). We should acknowledge the wrongs our forefathers committed, no matter how innocent their motives. We should be teaching this history in schools. We should be honouring Indigenous stories in our museums and galleries.

I thank Armfield and the STC for taking Thornhill’s story to another level, and my friend for helping me see it through different eyes, which at the conclusion of the play were this time filled with tears. 

Details
Viewed: 4 February 2016
Venue: Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay
Author: Kate Grenville
Adapted by: Andrew Bovell
Director: Neil Armfield
Production Company: Sydney Theatre Company

Epic Aussie Tale Challenges Notion of Otherness

I hope you had your weetbix this morning!

I’m sure when set designer David Fleischer pitched his concept for the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Golden Age he could not have helped but throw in a pun (or two) about actors getting their hands dirty. Why? Because almost the entire stage used to present this revival production of a Louis Nowra classic was taken up with a great big pile of dirt. Simplistic in concept, the design actually worked wonders for a play which traverses years and continents (and throws a little Greek tragedy in there for good measure).

When Nowra wrote the script, he likely envisaged set changes occurring behind the proscenium curtain. With no such luxury in the Wharf 1 theatre, Fleischer and Director Kip Williams instead employed the actors to set and remove a small array of props to denote each required location. Intriguingly, the prop carriers did not merely walk on and off stage in semi-darkness, hoping to go largely unnoticed by the audience. Instead, each scene change was carried out as a purposeful action; the branches representing the Tasmanian wilderness swayed gently in an imaginary breeze, the fence posts surrounding the sanatorium were driven violently into the dirt. This direction helped to maintain the pace and momentum of what is a very long and challenging work.

It is not just the staging that kept this production afloat, however, as all the cast members did an admirable job of keeping up their energy and commitment. You see, this play is an epic. Beginning in Hobart in the late 1930s, we follow two young men (played by Remy Hii and the supremely talented Brandon McClelland) into the West-Tasmanian wilderness, where they happen upon a small collection of motley Europeans who appear to have abandoned the trappings of modern society. The tribe has their own language - an odd mix of Scottish, Irish and Cockney English – and mythology.

Driven by curiosity (and unlikely love) the youths bring the strangers back to ‘civilisation’, and what follows is an exploration of insanity, the construct of war and what it means to be Australian. Did I mention this was an epic?!

McClelland does a bang-up job as the play’s leading man, effectively connecting past and present. But it is the characters of Ayre (Sarah Peirse) and Betsheb (Rarriwuy Hick) that are by far the most challenging in this work, not least because most of their dialogue is delivered in the tribe’s provocative and nearly-nonsensical language. The complexity of these Shakesperean-like roles was no doubt a joy to master, and Hick’s performance, in particular, had the audience revolted and enamoured in equal measure.

A special mention also goes to Ursula Yovich, who brilliantly inhabited the physicality of Elizabeth Archer (a genteel woman accustomed to dinner parties and theatrical fundraisers). Her mannerisms so perfectly mirrored those of my late grandmother (herself the perfect society hostess) that I was convinced they must have met.

Composer/Sound Designer, Max Lyandvert, brought a cinematic quality to the soundscape, scoring much of the play and Damien Cooper’s lighting design was subtle but played a strong narrative role.

Overall, Williams has done well to convey a very convoluted, and perhaps overlong, story. I questioned the need for the nudity (of which the audience was forewarned, along with the smoke effects and gunshots) but felt overall the play was in good hands. In his program notes, Williams said he was particularly conscious of how the play speaks to Australia’s national identity. Attended by this reviewer a few days out from Australia Day it was not hard to uncover this deeper meaning. Perhaps a concept further challenged by the casting of Indigenous actors in traditional ‘white’ roles.

But I believe the play speaks more strongly to the issue of mental illness and whether ‘crazy’ also means ‘dangerous’. With the story told against the backdrop of World War II, you are pushed unrelentingly towards the notion that people who do not operate according to society’s conventions are inferior to others. Many may not be aware that, during his reign, Hitler not only culled thousands of Jews, but also the mentally ill, deformed and homosexual. Today, we continue to persecute the non-conformists, through our laws, service funding and our attitudes. And we’re still participating in ugly wars in foreign lands, sacrificing our young in the name of protecting a nation and its shared ideals – whatever they may be.

Thought provoking and challenging, I congratulate the STC for taking on such an epic. It won’t be for everyone – but ironically doesn’t this play prove that there is no ‘everyone’?