In every production, the least convincing performance is the one by the critic attempting the role of Teller-of-the-Truth.
But it’s nothing new to assert that evaluations of productions are subjective. (Though, in my defence, theatre is not particularly interested in novelty. It’s been quipped that Jane Austen wrote not six novels, rather the same novel six times – but the accusation that Austen endlessly returned to the same material loses any sting when compared to an artform in which practitioners routinely present plays that have been produced 100’s of times before. Theatre is an artform in love with repetition. Do that to me one more time, Once is never enough….)
But back to my earlier point: my reluctance to accept a role in which my performance (as Teller-of-the-Truth) will undoubtedly be graded somewhere on the spectrum between foolishly naïve and laughably arrogant.
Of course, I’m happy to double, briefly appearing in that small role of self-important judge. (“Small role!” I hear publicists declare imperiously, “There are no small roles, only small reviewers!”)
But I’ll double that small role of evaluator with a more important one: facilitator of what the artwork offers.
A good play is like a stone thrown into a stagnant pond. When I write about theatre, I’m not especially interested in judging how the stone was thrown; I’m hoping to perpetuate the ripples.
Paul Gilchrist
Image by aceebee from Camberley, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In 2016, I wrote an Open Letter to Sydney’s Theatre Critics. It was read by more people than anything else I’ve ever written for this site. (And my second highest readership ever? An article entitled Truth in the Theatre Foyer.)
In my Open Letter, I asked if it was possible, at the end of a year, to do more than simply rank the productions that had been seen.
I’ve no great issue with ranking performances – especially if anything I’ve written is on anyone’s Best of List – but I was hoping that the people who had seen so much theatre might make some further observations. I ended my Open Letter with the exhortation “Make some generalisations – you’ve earnt it!”
This year, the first full year I’ve returned to serious reviewing for quite a while, I’ve decided to take my own advice.
However, there are a couple of caveats:
Firstly, I won’t be offering my own list of the “Best of”. Quite simply, who cares about my opinion? I could, of course, entitle the list “My Favourites”. That would acknowledge the issue of the unavoidable subjectivity (but still not address the issue of relevance or value.)
Secondly, I’ve seen and written responses to only 64 shows this year. That’s a lot of theatre most normal people would say, but my reviewing colleagues and I are not of that demographic. (Some of them have seen twice as many shows as me.) And to add a little more perspective, of the 50 shows nominated for this year’s Sydney Theatre Awards, I saw only 7. I do try to get along to most things I’m invited to. However, I avoid amateur theatre – not because of the quality, but because my pretentious approach is not a good fit with their mission statements – and I’m also currently not on the publicity list of several companies (STC, Old Fitz, Hayes, and Eternity.)
So, with these two caveats in mind, here are my outrageous generalisations. I’ll start with the most trivial.
There are more reviewers than ever before. My personal publicity list currently has 37 review sites. And, every time a new show opens, I see on social media quotes from reviewers I’ve never heard of. I guess it’s a bit like those infinite number of monkeys banging away on an infinite number of typewriters: one of them will eventually write something worthwhile.
Reviews now come with stars. When I started Theatre Red in 2011, a small number of publications rated shows out of 5 stars. Now most do. (I don’t. I’m uncomfortable about the implied comparison between shows. And I’m also keen that what I write about a show isn’t entirely abbreviated to something even a monkey can read.) One site even grades productions to the first decimal point, awarding scores such as 4.9 or 4.8 stars. (I’m keen to get a copy of that marking criteria.)
Reviews are increasingly more generous-spirited. If you put on a show, someone will give it 5 stars. Perhaps this is not an ideal situation, but it’s preferable to the critical culture of several years ago, in which so many reviews were written with the subtext Who, exactly, do you think you are to write or direct or perform in a play? But, the overly effusive language of many reviews now makes it feel as though it’s marketing copy that’s being written rather than theatre criticism. (Of course, if you want exposure for your publication, if you want your site mentioned in an ad on the side of a bus, it’s good strategy to be extremely positive.)
Instagram has changed the way that shows are marketed. On Facebook, producers generally put links to the review. On Insta, using a program like Canva, anyone can now take one of their production shots, bang on it the stars they’ve been awarded and the ticket booking details, and the whole thing seems extremely professional. As a producer of theatre, I’ve done it myself. As a writer of reviews, I would really like people to actually read the reviews.
The number of independent theatre venues continues to decrease. And this is at a time when there seem to be more artists wanting to make theatre than ever. On the upside, it’s great to see little companies finding eclectic spaces to weave their magic.
There is a continuing focus in our theatre on what the Right calls identity politics. We must have diversity on our stages and in our storytelling. (And one great consequence of this trend is that over half of the shows I saw this year were new works.) But I’d like to offer an observation; consider the oft-repeated slogan Our stories must be told. It posits an interesting question: is the role of the playwright to document society? And, if so, what technical and moral attributes would be required of them to do this effectively? And what sort of awareness, both in terms of aesthetics and epistemology, would the audience of such a work need? Watching a play that purports to bear witness to the lived experience of a particular demographic group, do I say “Well, that’s the Such and Such community!” or should I count this play as merely the equivalent of a single anecdote from a single individual who undoubtedly has personal biases? (I’ve got a lot to say about this idea – but it will have to wait until a later time).
Despite the above comment aboutidentity theatre, a lot of indie work is still showcase theatre. By showcase theatre I mean indie theatre in which it appears the artists’ goal is to showcase their ability so they’ll be discovered and no longer need to do indie theatre. This is natural, and not something I can criticise – but it’s always great to see work that’s being shared primarily because of the beauty and truth it offers.
This is how I ended my Open Letter in 2016: “And what isn’t happening in the scene that you really think should? After all, a good critic recognises what’s happening, and a great critic knows what is not.” So what do I think should be happening? Who asks questions like that? If I have an answer, it’ll probably be expressed in my own own theatre, rather than in theatre criticism.
But I’m looking forward to 2024 and all the brilliant work I’m sure to see.
In the meantime, an enormous thank you to Sydney’s theatre makers!
Mark O’Rowe’s play was first produced in Dublin in 2007.
It’s a three hander, constructed from interconnected monologues.
O’Rowe tells a damn good story. Set in modern Dublin, it’s laced with sex, violence and an unconventional theology. It’s both very funny and thought provoking.
O’Rowe employs what’s been described as poetic prose. This particular jury of one is still out in regard to its effectiveness. There are certainly passages of remarkable beauty, a glorious speech in which a young woman reflects on key moments in her life being one. But the use of rhyme, so effective in creating humour, perhaps is less so in representing reality. It depends on your metaphysics, your vision of the nature of Truth, or indeed if you think Truth has any particular nature at all (and is therefore deserving of that capital ‘T’). Despite offering a portrait of a very gritty, wild, dangerous city, the tight connections between the three storylines, the presence of an eschatology (unconventional or not) and, yes, the frequent rhyme, all suggest a world in which there is most definitely an ultimate order…. and that’s a vision of life that’s increasingly less common. (I will note, however, that O’Rowe’s three storylines are hardly of the common garden variety, and so to suggest the play asserts some sort of ultimate Truth might be missing the point – and I’ve reviewed theatre long enough to know that’sa common garden variety occupational hazard.)
This production, directed by Katherine Hopwood Poulsen, is a splendid 115 minutes of theatre. Presented in the basement of the Marrickville Town Hall, the aesthetic is appropriately minimalist, allowing the script and the performances to shine. Tabrett Bethell plays a woman attempting to save another from what she believes is a forced backyard abortion. Bethell has a powerful stage presence that effectively stands in pathos-inducing contrast to the character’s deep fragility. Andrea Tan plays a woman who, in a moment of fatal danger, is aided by the most surprising of heroes. It’s in this storyline that the play is at its most fantastical, and the gorgeous strength of Tan’s performance is that we’re fascinated to see where all this unlikeliness might lead. Johnny Cordukes plays an unexpected serial killer (though I’m not sure I’ve met enough of the type to be certain about the first of those adjectives.) Cordukes nails the macabre humour and, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, keeps us thoroughly engaged in the darkest parts of the tale.
Terminus was my final show for 2023 and, after a wonderful ride through a year of theatre, it was a terrific place for that journey to end.
(In which my desire to appear erudite is apparent in the pretentious surfeit of quotes from other texts.)
Kenneth Grahame’s novel was published in 1908; it’s a perfect piece of Edwardian charm.
This is the literary world in which Rupert Brooke could dream of death on the Western Front in these words:
“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
that is for ever England.”
Brooke also imagined that, in the afterlife, his soul would give back to the Divine
“the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”
In this gush of misty positivity, Brooke omits any description of his mangled, war-broken corpse.
(In all fairness, this oddly parochial era did also produce Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.)
Alan Bennett’s very clever theatrical adaptation of The Wind in the Willows was first performed in 1990 at the National Theatre. Bennett sticks to the key elements of the story, but he loses Grahame’s absolutely delightful narrative voice. Here’s a sample of how such prose might leave an honest dramatist to weep in envy:
“He (the Mole) thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”
But Bennett’s dramatic treatment does allow him to add even more jokes, and the postcolonial context encourages him to makes more explicit the very English nature of the tale, and to gently mock it.
Bennett also gives a clearer narrative arc. The original novel is episodic, but Bennett introduces the villains (the weasels, stoats, foxes and ferrets) early on, in preparation for the final showdown with the heroes (a mole, a water rat, a badger and a toad.)
To any audience, familiar with the book or not, this anthropomorphism is its most distinctive feature. The characters are animals of the English countryside, but they speak (English, obviously) and live very English middleclass lives – ones filled with picnics, motoring and recreational boating. Is the suggestion that there’s something unquestionably natural about this way of life?
Grahame’s idyll was certainly a curious tale to tell at a time when England’s empire covered more than half the planet. Perhaps it was an elegy for lost innocence. Perhaps it was a smoke screen. (Though Tolkien’s diminutive hobbits – with their burrows, their penchant for comfort, their unexpected resilience, their fierce loyalty – are surely direct descendants of Grahame’s heroes. And despite Tolkien’s proclaimed dislike of allegory, this English myth of the courage of the little people came into its own in 1940.)
Whatever the case, Grahame’s story has undeniable charm, and has long been a favourite of children’s literature, a tale that speaks to both little ones and their elders.
Directed by James Raggatt, this production brims with magic. A bare stage is filled with exuberant performances. Michael Doris is terrific as Toad, presenting a character who is gloriously self-centred, eyes ever open to a world of adventure, and heart closed to anyone but himself. Lachlan Stevenson as the serious and sensible Badger has a commanding stage presence and offers a splendidly rich vocal performance. Miranda Daughtry as the weasel gives a perfectly hilarious portrait of the small time crime boss. Ross Walker plays Albert the horse wonderfully, poignantly expressing the patient resentment domesticated animals surely must feel towards their supposed owners. (The role is a superb invention of Bennett’s. He gives the horse a name and voice, and by giving him a burgeoning political consciousness, mischievously prompts us – as we watch a play soaked in anthropomorphism – to closely consider the nature of our relationship with our animal cousins.)
The use of the space is magnificent, especially as the cast, hooded like puppeteers, effectively create cars, trains and boats, all from very simple props.
Occasionally the pace falters. Perhaps a more vigorous soundscape might have helped (and that’s from someone who usually finds them superfluous at best, and cheating at worst.)
And in case you’re uncertain about spending an(other) evening with a pack of adults in animal onesies, rest assured the costuming by Isabella Holder is beautifully simple and gently evocative.
A playful paean to friendship and pleasure, this is a fun show.
Paul Gilchrist
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (adapted for the stage by Alan Bennett)
Gogol wrote the original in 1836, as a satire targeting the abuse of power. Director Alex Kendall Robson’s adaptation retains the Russian setting but updates the language. (The theme requires no updating.)
Anachronistic liberties are taken (references to Tolstoy, Chekhov, Rasputin and that quintessentially Russian pop group, Boney M) but all these add to the fun.
Gogol’s play is a classic tale of mistaken identity. The authorities in a provincial town mistake wandering scoundrel Khlestakovfor a government inspector. Knowing their conduct has been corrupt, they’re terrified, and do all they can to placate Khlestakov. There are gags galore at the expense of the greedy and the status obsessed.
Robson presents the show in the round, which puts pressure on a cast already a little challenged by the echoey acoustics of the venue, but the physical use of the space is splendid. Performances are explosively energetic, and include a fascinating range of acting choices. There’s some highly stylised movement, in set pieces by the entire cast, and in choices fundamental to the portrayal of certain characters. Raechyl French and Jade Fuda, as mother and daughter of the town mayor, move in a closely choreographed manner that might evoke a formal 19th century dance, appropriately symbolic of their fixation with class, but also hinting at the restrictions experienced by women in a patriarchy. (Incidentally, their ribald linguistic humour is suggestively naughty, but also suggestive of desire infantilised by oppression.) Jack Elliot Mitchell as the Post Master also uses hyper-realistic movement, a sort of languid slide and sensual pose, and aided by a vocal delivery that luxuriates in every syllable and so maximises the bawdy, a terrific portrait of pleasure seeking decadence is achieved. Lib Campbell as Khlestakov struts and pouts and throws herself around, wonderfully embodying a childish self-obsession.
Other actors create their characters with less fireworks, but with equal impact. Sonya Kerr lets the language do the lifting and shines in her razor sharp portrayal of the cold hearted Chairperson of the Mayoral Advisory Board on Matters of Charity, Humanity and Philanthropy. Shaw Cameron’s Mayor is also magnificent. A public man, everyman’s friend until you’re not, Cameron plays it big, garrulous and greedy, but informed by the vision of the ever practical politician, the portrait retains the truth that gives real edge to its satirical teeth. Similarly, Mitchell Frederick Stewart as the Police Commissioner is brilliant, his understated, matter-of-fact delivery perfectly encapsulating the entitlement that perpetuates systemic corruption.
Paul Gilchrist
The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, adapted by Alex Kendall Robson
As a reviewer of theatre, it would be no surprise to anyone that I find reading difficult. Consequently, when I’m sent marketing material, I don’t read it. If I’m invited to a show, and I’m available, I go.
The tiny amount of hype about this show that managed to seep through my obtuseness had lead me to expect a satire, with amateur theatre as its target. Now, as amateur theatre companies are the epitome of all that is evil in our society – in their unthinking, unearned privilege, in their wanton misuse of power – I was looking forward with relish to their being taken down a good peg or two.
But satire this was not. Instead, it’s an utterly charming sitcom. (Which is probably just as well; on more sober reflection, a professional theatre company taking aim at amateurs smacks of a mean-spiritedness more suited to my role than theirs.)
It’s opening night of the Middling Cove Amateur Drama Society’s production of Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall, but more than half the cast have come down with the lurgy. Cancel? God forbid! The show must go on!
The script by Jamie Oxenbould and director Mark Kilmurry is hilarious, a glorious mixture of gags and set-ups that facilitate character based humour, both verbal and physical. And the cast know what they’ve been given and they make it sing. (And some of the characters want to actually sing – when they really probably shouldn’t.)
Performances are comic brilliance. I especially enjoyed Sam O’Sullivan as the so-serious auteur, Eloise Snape as the part-time actor who absolutely lives for her brief moments on stage (Providence having in its wisdom kept them brief), and Oxenbould as the old hand whose optimism remains untempered by experience. And Ariadne Sgouros as the stage manager, with her Hey-this-is-reality-calling attitude, is splendid.
To successfully present truly terrible acting you have to be one of two things – truly terrible, or a true actor.
Like all sitcom, there are a couple of conceits an audience must accept to enjoy the ride. The first of these is that actors in a production know the lines of characters other than their own (I would’ve thought they struggled to remember even these.) The second is that amateur companies do new work. (Thank God that professional companies like Ensemble commit to it.)
In addition to sitcom, there’s also parody of the murder mystery genre. This type of parody is, of course, as easy as shooting fish in a barrel – only more common. (But I have to admit, in the case of that particular genre, I think the fish still definitely have it coming.)
And is something serious spun from all this marvellous, magic, comic mayhem?
During the show, the couple next to me whispered that it was difficult to know when the line between art and reality was being crossed. (Or, as the more cynical might rephrase it, when performance started and Life stopped.)
For me, the question the piece very pertinently asks is why do we value art? Is art created ultimately for the audience, or for the artist? It’s not merely amateurs that must ask themselves that.
So satire, after all.
As Someone-or-other-ski once said “Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art”.
Paul Gilchrist
Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hallby Mark Kilmurry and Jamie Oxenbould
We know Maria is dead from the beginning. She tells us. We’re going to be shown how it happened. It’s an interesting creative choice, especially considering that the dead Maria accuses us of coming along just to see her murder (a crime I was previously unaware of, and a crime that it wasn’t me who chose to write a play about.)
But, apparently, Maria’s terrible fate is well-known, and has been the subject of ballad and theatrical treatment many times before.
The poor woman was murdered by her male lover in Suffolk in 1827.
Here playwright Beth Flintoff presents it as the story of a woman who suffers from gaslighting and coercive control.
There are other intriguing decisions being made: the key one being that men are substantially written out of the tale. In the first act, the only two male characters who appear are played by women. Rhiannon Jean and Olivia Bartha create these two wonderfully: Jean’s Thomas encapsulates small obtuse selfishness, and Bartha’s Peter is a terrific portrait of genuine personal affection battling social expectation.
In the second act, no male character appears on stage at all. It’s a brave decision. By privileging the female experience, the risk is run of making it less comprehensible – considering the topic is the relation between the sexes. Maria drives the play, and Naomi Belet’s performance is eminently watchable, a pathos inducing mixture of glorious exuberance and traumatised doubt. The script’s decision to exclude the culpable male character effectively centres the victim’s torment, but does so at the cost of making it less certain. The gaslighting and coercion are not shown, and so perhaps Maria really is a fool or mad – though I’m pretty sure that’s not the tale’s conscious purpose. In addition, choosing not to show men behaving badly can have the unintended consequence of imply their agency is irrelevant, and that the problem of violence against women is solely, and unfairly, up to women to solve.
Such a tale as this is indicative of the ambiguity in our current use of the word “story”. We constantly say things like “our stories should be told”, meaning our lived experience should be acknowledged or seen. But that isn’t the only meaning of the word “story”. A good story is not simply a true one. The feminist assertion that most stories have expressed male lived experience is entirely valid, but in the pain of exclusion, to conclude that is all stories do is to miss their potential. Stories are not merely records of experience; they are invitations to judgement. Representation is not approval or assent; audiences can, and do, judge the actions of characters. Human beings delight in discernment; it’s the basis of our agency in the moral universe. In its invitation to judge, theatre is a type of enjoyable work out, a necessary training for the real thing.
Director Louise Fischer’s female ensemble do some great work, but the conclusion of the piece also prodded me into thought. I’ll be wary of spoilers, but the play’s presentation of female solidarity is fascinatingly indicative of the current zeitgeist. Is the freedom of throwing off the dominance of one group only to be found by being subsumed into another? And is political action always to be symbolic?
My vagueness is no doubt frustrating, but see this work – and then read about the historical events on which its based – and you’ll see that it is burningly relevant, both in its powerful indictment of misogyny, and in its thought-teasing presentation of contemporary political assumptions.
Written by Charlie Falkner, it works a few standard tropes: begin with a death that draws together some unlikely characters, then add some sort of natural phenomena (flood, avalanche, snowstorm, or the like) that prevents these characters escaping each other. Here it’s Renata and Flicks’ mother who has died, and so the dissimilar sisters meet for the very first time. The imprisoning setting is Darwin, and more particularity the daggy Palms Motel, where the guests are trapped by marauding crocodiles.
Director Samantha Young elicits suitably wacky performances from the terrific comic cast. Ainslie McGlynn is wonderful as Renata, the self-obsessed American self-help author (self-help reductio ad absurdum.) Mathew Lee as John, her goofy devotee, delivers a beautiful study of naivete, awkwardness and fixation. Danny Ball as Declan, Renata’s partner, is a giggle-inducing self-important hypocrite. Running the motel is Flick, in Zoe Jensen’s delightful portrait of the parochial local. Aiding her is Leilani Lau’s Bobbi, a kindly kook who provides plenty of laughs with Lau’s perfect delivery of Falkner’s malapropisms.
I call the piece a puzzle because I had difficulty seeing the connection between the different strands. (Of course, being a writer of theatre criticism, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.) I’m not sure why Declan was Irish (though I am familiar with the stereotype informing the decision to make the other two interlopers American.) I also didn’t understand the meaning of the motif that Declan could smell blood (that is, to the degree usually attributed to sharks, rather than their distant cousins, the Irish.) Similarly, what actually had happened to the sisters’ mother began as a mystery and, for me, remained one to the end. I’m not sure why Bobbi kept a wild rat in a cage (though it might’ve been a substitute for her missing husband, who was a despicable love rat.) I don’t know why Flick suffered from something akin to narcolepsy.
Perhaps the last of these puzzles hints at the solution to the rest: faced with climate catastrophe (the sort that drives crocodiles out of their natural habitats and to the streets) these quirky characters are all asleep – and so the whole thing functions as a crazy, oddball satire on myopia.
Paul Gilchrist
Darwin’s Reptilia by Charlie Falkner
at Downstairs Belvoir (as part of 25A) until 26 November
I’ve tried to read the book. Twice. Admittedly, not in Russian. Maybe it reads better in Russian. Maybe I should learn.
Eamon Flack’s adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s famous book is rollicking good fun and an extraordinarily invigorating night of theatre.
Satan has come to Stalin’s Russia. (A tautology?) There he meets Margarita, who is mourning her lover. She has nicknamed him “The Master” because of the beautiful novel he has written. But his beautiful novel has got him into serious trouble and now, for all she knows, he languishes in a cell, or worse. His novel is about Pontius Pilate. Why? I guess because Pilate was one of the men who persecuted an innocent, well-meaning philosopher. Very Stalin’s Russia.
Is the production faithful to Bulgakov’s original novel? It presents as being so. (Clearly, I wouldn’t know.) The book itself is usually there on stage (even though, in this minimalist design, often little else is, except a revolve.) Matilda Ridgway as the narrator supposedly reads from the book. With her warm, intelligent stage presence, I’d like Ridgway to read me the whole thing.
The impact of this creative choice is to emphasise the novel as something distinct from this performance, something truly valuable, a cultural treasure. (It is, of course, Bulgakov who is The Master in Flack’s version. )
The whole narrator thing on a stage with a revolve (did I mention this? I’m thinking of getting one installed at home) also facilitates a gleefully impish tone, and Flack has some astonishing stage tricks up his sleeve. (I was told by the publicist to say no more, and one thing I learnt from the play, and as much as the book as I got through, is that it’s very dangerous for a writer to challenge authority.) The cast fully embrace the crazy and it’s an absolute delight. Paula Arundell as Satan crackles with mischief. Gareth Davies as Azzazelo, with perfect comic timing, is perfectly creepy. Anna Samson as Margarita is splendidly and inspiringly audacious. Josh Price as the devil’s cat and heavy is glorious goofy fun.
An intriguing texture is achieved by interspersing the madcap zaniness with scenes from The Master’s novel. Brilliant in Bulgakov’s book, they’re absolutely brilliant here. Marco Chiappi as Pontius Pilate gives a poignant portrait of a man used to wielding authority but beginning to sense both its awful weight and its surprising vacuity. Mark Leonard Winter, who is The Master in the Russian scenes, is Yeshua (Jesus) here, and delivers a performance that is divine: a luminous portrayal of the simple, truthful soul, one of those iconic characters radiating through out Russian literature, and making it a moral lamp to humankind.
Another interspersion is all Flack’s: there’s a terrific parody of the Q & A that commonly accompanies theatre and too often only illustrates the triviality of our supposedly serious critical discussions compared to the work itself. Chiappi as the chair is pathetically and hilariously unable to comprehend the experience of so many artists under communist Russia, a world in which genuine commitment braved perpetual danger.
Full disclosure: I didn’t understand the end. (Thank God for the spoiler rule, which means no one will ever, ever know.)
But one repeated line has had me thinking ever since: the greatest sin is cowardice.
It’s said to Pilate by Yeshua. Is it true? It may have been Pilate’s greatest sin, but as a maxim it’s difficult to universalise. Courage seems a secondary virtue, it’s value determined by what it’s applied to. A Nazi might be a coward, but most of us would think that the least of his sins, and one that might even be conducive to lessening the evil of which he is capable. Or is cowardice being defined in a grander way?
It’s a provocative invitation, and one fitting a piece of theatre which made me fall in love again with the art form.
Paul Gilchrist
The Master and Margarita by Eamon Flack (adapted from the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov)
(in which I write an absurdly complicated and self-indulgent response to a simply beautiful piece)
There’s something gloriously familiar about this show. This is partly because it presents a genuine slice of Sydney life: a woman waiting at the Bank Hotel for a Tinder date. It’s also familiar because a one woman show about dating follows a tried and tested path.
But Megan Bennetts does something special with this one.
Bennetts has an extraordinary stage presence, and the character she creates, Emma, is utterly adorable. Bennetts’ script is clever and superbly structured, and with the guidance of director Nisrine Amine, she executes both the verbal and physical comedy brilliantly. Let me unpack both of these.
Bennett’s vocal performance is wonderful. Tell a tale of the modern woman drinking alone in a pub and it’s oh so easy to fall into the dull, stereotypical vocal patterns of the ladette: brutality masquerading as confidence, aggression impersonating autonomy. Bennetts instead allows the humour to be grounded in natural rhythms of speech, unforced, subtle, and far funnier for that.
Her physicality is first-rate. Moments of drunkenness are played magnificently, with hints of Emma’s inebriation mischievously showing through despite the character’s best attempts to disguise them. And the flashback to Emma as a backpack wielding school girl is gold.
Now, apart from outlining the scenario in the broadest terms, I’ve avoided discussing what the show is about. Without spoilers, I can say that it explores one of the greatest tensions in human experience: sexuality versus individuality.
Though sexuality is so important for how we see ourselves, it cares nothing for us. It’s a blind, brute force. It’s as though we’re some flimsy chime and it’s all the winds of the wide world. In the collision of the two something beautiful can occur, but it seems we’re more suited to zephyrs than cyclones, and yet the earth’s great diurnal journey fuels more fury than fluff. Bennett’s script interprets the grand clash between sexuality and individuality as a battle with social expectations, and that’s indubitably true (and probably more suited to the dramatic form than my audacious metaphors.) Despite what the world says, Emma must decide what matters for herself.
I began this response by suggesting Losing It follows a well-trodden path – but with a crucial caveat. To explain myself, a diversion. Reductionists will tell us sexuality is all about reproduction. But in the human experience, reproduction is an inaccurate term; in so far as it guarantees Life’s continuance, sexuality ensures not reproduction, not replication, but rather diversity, both genetically and socially. That’s sexuality’s function. (Evolution could have simply chosen cloning, which it has for a number of species.) Sexuality’s raison d’être is to have us not eternally tread the same path. To consider sex this way is to begin to question convention. And now one final crazy metaphor (building on my previous motif of sex as a primal force): Sexuality is the ocean in which swims the fish of individuality. Sexuality is as broad and deep as the sea, and for the fish there’s no escape – but there also are no defined paths, only endless possibilities.
It’s the offering of this vision of glorious variety that makes Bennetts’ work special.
And I must emphasise, Losing It has none of the ridiculous density of my response; it’s fun, wise and splendidly Life-affirming.
The script was developed through the Katie Lees Fellowship, an initiative encouraging young women in art, and commemorating a beautiful soul.
Theatre Red 