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’?
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