Friday Five: More Theatre

These are brief reviews of five theatre productions I have seen recently

1. Jane Eyre - shake & stir theatre, The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre: In the spirit of full disclosure I must point out that Jane Eyre is one of my favourite novels, along with Animal Farm, a play of which shake & stir produced last year - review here. Jane Eyre matches the production company's enormously high standards - the pyrotechnics on the set alone (I'm assuming you know the story so this is no spoiler) are worth the price of admission. The new adaptation featuring original music (written and performed live on stage by Sarah McLeod) is simply outstanding. Nelle Lee plays the titular role with passion and repression from the derided young girl to the dignified mature woman she becomes, guided by her impulses, values and strong sense of inner strength. The three other actors play all the other roles with complete conviction; the blend of Gothic Romance and contemporary gender insights is absolutely perfect and so true to the novel it has instantly become one of my favourite experiences. 
2. Pygmalion - Tempo Theatre Inc., Belconnen Community Theatre: Often overshadowed by the opulent musical, My Fair Lady based upon it, Pygmalion is arguably George Bernard Shaw's masterpiece. Tempo's version is true to the intentions of the socialist polemic, indeed, Peter Fock stands out as Alfred Doolittle railing against middle class mortality rather than as the too-often-seen portrayal as a commitment-shunning buffoon. Adam Salter gives Henry Higgins the necessary academic confidence and boyish glee in 'his' achievements in passing off the flower girl, Eliza, as a well-bred young lady after his elocution lessons, while leaving no room for mature sentiment - this is usually balanced by the gravitas of Colonel Pickering, which is absent in this production. The young man, Thomas Cullen, brings gentleness to the role but removing the title of Colonel changes its focus entirely, with insufficient direction to compensate. The highlights of the play are embodied in the women. As Mrs Higgins and Mrs Pearce, Elaine Noon and Joan White respectively are delightful, providing a calm dignity and reasoned response to Higgins (and, in one scene, to a flimsy set failure). Meaghan Stewart as Eliza Doolittle is stunning, willful, fierce and vulnerable; determined to be her own woman and not a creation of Higgins' to be put on a pedestal or shut in a museum. The audience is with her from the beginning, and contemporary concerns about women's rights in society and their treatment by those in traditional male professions merely accentuate our sympathies.

3. Arsenic and Old Lace, Canberra Repertory Society, Theatre 3: Joseph Kesselring's 1939 farcical black comedy is probably more alluded to than it is seen - most people have heard of the two seemingly sweet spinster sisters (Abby and Martha) who have taken to murdering gentleman lodgers and burying them in the basement. In Canberra Rep's production, the smiling assassins are the perfectly harmonious duo of Alice Ferguson (the acerbic grand dame who plays it straight) and Nikki-Lynne Hunter (who gives it a gloriously dizzy and ditsy turn). Their art critic nephew, Mortimer (a frenetic Jack Shanahan), has to deal with the increasingly odd events while trying to decide whether to marry the girl next-door (Natalie Waldron, who deserves more than yet another looks-in-lieu-of-character role). The cast is rounded out by Robbie Matthews as the barmy brother who thinks he is a former Aussie PM, Rob de Fries playing the murderous nephew brother whose plastic surgery conceals his identity, and Kayla Ciceran as the alcoholic accomplice who performed the operation.  Director Ian Hart acknowledges the script is outdated and attempts to modernise it by setting it in contemporary Queanbeyan, hence the Aussie PM reference rather than the original Teddy Roosevelt, and Jonathan is now meant to resemble Freddy Krueger rather than Boris Karloff (who actually performed the role in the original stage play). Not all of the updates land, however, such as Hart's awkward approach to gender diversity in casting or the Fawlty-Towers-esque anagram gag adds an unnecessarily creaky element to an otherwise excellent set (Andrew Kay once again with a deft and professional touch). The timing is uneven and efforts to overcompensate frequently fall flat in a desperate stretch for unobtainable laughs. 
4. Emerald City - Free Rain, ACTHUB: David Williams' 1987 satire of men behaving badly is all about the dialogue. We are harangued with debates about the merit of art - celluloid and literary - and the inherent differences between Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney, with its unsubstantiated promise of fulfilling dreams is the Emerald City of the title, while Melbourne is for urban intellectuals who are motivated by morals rather than money. If you want to hear 'characters' discuss these topics at witty and acerbic length, you could do worse. The actors all excel in the limited range their characters are constrained to demonstrate, and they deliver the dialogue with excellent clarity: every word could be heard, and there are an awful lot of them. Designers have clearly had nostalgic fun with set and costume (Cate Clelland and Fiona Leach), as it's all chic decor and keen angles combined with silk shirts and sharp suits, while director Anne Somes has softened the edges with sartorial metaphors - her subtle use of shoes is inspired. These people are unpleasant, but it is even more disturbing to acknowledge how 80's ambition seems tame in an environment where the bully boys have moved on from verbal sniping to willfully disregarding laws, contesting elections and invading countries. Who knew we would ever look back on the 'greed is good' mantra as the good old days.
5. Urinetown - Heart Strings Theatre Co., Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre - Yes, it’s a terrible title; yes, it’s truly awful subject matter; yes, it’s utterly ridiculous, but Urinetown is a lot of fun! The band are great; the voices are outstanding and the deceptively simple-looking choreography and staging are spectacular. I'm so glad that Ylaria Rogers has finally brought this dream to life. As a self-identifying non- musical theatre fan, I found this to be an unexpected surprise. Is there any other kind? It self-referentially (and reverentially) mocks the genre of musical theatre (particularly Broadway) and parodies specific musicals: I didn't get all the allusions but Les Mis, West Side Story and The Threepenny Opera were obvious even to me, and the song Run Freedom RUn, brought me out in a cold sweat with a flashback to singing Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat, but it could be any gospel-inspired show-tune. I also recognised the Our Town 'narrated by the stage-manager' trope, but my theatre-going companion didn't, and he loved it anyway. So there really is something for everyone. 

Friday Five: Women in Books

Recently I read How to Be a Heroine, Or, What I've Learned from Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis, in which the author revisits the books she read as a child and young woman to see if she still admired the same female characters who had a profound effect on her in her youth.

I will return to this book in a later post, but it made me think about my childhood literary heroines, and whether I still feel the same way about them. The answer is yes - does this mean I had great taste back then, or rather, that I've never grown up?

5 Literary Heroines from My Younger Years:

1. George from The Famous Five books by Enid Blyton: George firmly believes her gender shouldn't prevent her from doing what she wants; she tackles 'the great outdoors' with gusto and is unashamedly physical; she is greatly concerned about animal welfare; her personal integrity crosses class boundaries; she is intelligent without being intellectual; she is fiercely loyal towards her friends. Sure, she scowls a lot, but I still wanted to be her (way more than I ever wanted to be Pollyanna). And I wanted her rowing boat. And her island. 
2. Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - I love the novel, and her cheeky, irreverent adaptability. She is a social outsider, who uses cunning and charm to claw her way to respectability, yet never achieves it. She is also radically non-maternal; one of the few female characters who doesn't go all pathetic and uninteresting once she's had a baby. And she had a thoroughly modern moniker, unlike Pamela, Clarissa or Hester.
3. Susan Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis: as the eldest sister, she is compassionate enough to care for her family and brave enough to fight for them and stand up for her beliefs. She has arrows that never miss their target (who wouldn't want those?) but she is the voice of reason and commonsense - often she prefers to take the easy route rather than plunging recklessly into battle - even as a child, I saw the virtue in that. At the end of the series, she doesn't enter Narnia with the others, because she is more interested in 'nylons and lipstick and invitations'. In other words, she discovers sex and and drugs and rock and roll (or real life, if you prefer), and gets to grow up.
4. Jane Eyre, from the eponymous novel by Charlotte Brontë: she's honest, forthright and powerful, acting with dignity and grace even when burning with shame and rejection. And she addresses the reader directly. She may be plain and unrefined, but she has nothing at all to hide
5. Anne Frank - this is sort of cheating because she was a real person, but I first read her diary as though she were a fictional character, and I related to all her family frictions and teenage pretentiousness, even if I (thankfully) have never had to deal with Nazis battering down the door. Her words and ways to live have a power she could never have expected. 

Jane Eyre

I went to see the Stagecraft production of Jane Eyre at the Gryphon Theatre last week. I was told that purists would hate it. Jane Eyre is my favourite book. I am in awe of Charlotte Bronte and think is she is one of the world's greatest writers, so naturally I went to the theatre with a touch of trepidation.

It was fantastic. I thought it was a great show with a great cast and excellent direction. There were elements of the play that I didn't like, but these are faults of Polly Teale's play itself and certainly not of the acting or direction or staging. I wrote my full review for Lumiere but didn't want to include too many plot spoilers there, although there are things that still bother me about the play.

For example, if Bertha is Jane's alter-ego, the two times she escapes from the attic take on an extra meaning. In the first instance she attempts to kill Rochester by setting light to his bedroom - although in this version it appears that she would rather possess him first. If she is trying to kill him, does this mean that subconsiously Jane thinks he isn't right for her and wishes him dead? Or is she trying to set him up so that she can save him and appear his protector? Either way, this makes her less modest and humble than she appears throughout the play and so implies that she is devious and prepared to risk anything to get her own way.

In the second instance, she visits Jane's bedchamber and shreds her veil the night before the wedding. Is she trying to warn her subconscious self against marrying Mr Rochester? If she thinks this would be a disaster and Jane turns her back on these feelings, then it makes the supposed happy ending far less happy. Also if Jane's passionate and wilfull side has to die before she becomes Mrs Rochester, then this is a sad indictment on women who sacrifice their inner soul just to get the ring on their finger. I don't think Charlotte's Jane does this. But maybe Polly's Jane does.

Perhaps this is too deep an interpretation and the mad woman who escapes is merely Bertha Mason and not the other Jane. In which case, when does she stop being Jane and become the other woman? I don't think you can have it both ways, and it is this that doesn't make sense to me.

Having said that, I think it is a wonderful play and I really recommend that everyone who can, should go. I'd love to know your thoughts and interpretations of these events, so please let me know!