Friday Five: Even More Theatre

These are the latest brief reviews of five theatre productions I have seen recently (ish).

Karen Vickery and Natasha Vickery in Collected Stories

1. Collected Stories, Chaika Theatre Company, ACT Hub - This is sensational theatre: a great production of a great play, with superb acting by Karen Vickery and Natasha Vickery, and direction by Luke Rogers. Famous writer and teacher Ruth Steiner (Karen Vickery) takes on aspiring author Lisa Morrison (Natasha Vickery) as a protégé, and their power dynamic shifts subtly throughout the play as the student learns all they can from their tutor, eventually surpassing them in certain ways. Written by Donald Margulies, the play questions who has the right to tell someone else's story and what emotional events can be manipulated for creative and commercial gain. Plays featuring women can be amazing when the protagonists get to talk about something other than having (or not having) babies. Who knew we could actually be imaginative and interesting… 
2. An Evening with Richard E Grant, The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre - The man is charming and knows how to tell a good story. His life is rich with incident, from his childhood in former Swaziland - now Eswatini - (told in his diaries and Wah-Wah, the film he wrote and directed) to being picked to play Whitnail in his breakout role in Whitnail and I, to his relationships with famous celebrities and the death of his beloved wife, voice coach Joan Washington. He talks candidly and refreshingly about it all, saving his dearest love for Barbara Streisand and of course, Joan, whom he clearly loves and cherishes every day. He has a remarkable optimism, which is moving and infectious, and it is a delight to spend an hour or two in his upbeat company. 
3. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis Carnage Tour, Canberra Theatre -  I have not seen Nick Cave perform live before, so this was a real treat as I thought I knew what to anticipate, but this still exceeded all expectations. With banter that alluded to their years-long friendship, the pair moved through a repertoire  repertoire of slow, melancholic numbers, to upbeat anthems chanted with passion by the loving crowd.  Ellis showcased his incredible musical versatility, playing the violin, flute and keyboard all with remarkable aplomb and charisma. Lying on a stool with his legs in the air and punctuating the beats with the bow held aloft, his physicality with the violin is not to be surpassed. Nick Cave's voice is distinctive and soulful, and he smashes out those songs with passion and commitment. The gig was breathtaking, heartbreakingly beautiful, bewitching and spellbinding; two and a half hours of solid evangelistic genius.

4. The Torrents, Mill Theatre at Dairy Road - For their inaugural production, Mill Theatre deliver a sharp and affecting piece of social commentary. A young woman, J. (Jenny) G. Millthorpe (played with calm assurance by Lexi Sekuless, who also directs), in a late 19th-century small gold-mining town tries to get a job at a newspaper where only men are employed. She argues her merits and her value so well that she persuades the old blusterers (including Elaine Noon rising to the challenge of playing the gruff Scot Macdonald and Heidi Silberman as the spectacularly unctuous John Manson), the young braggarts (Kat Smally excelling as Ben Torrent) and eventually the owner (Rachel Howard with measured nuance as Rufus Torrent). Meanwhile there are schemes for agricultural irrigation which are opposed by the proponents of mining in an environmental battle that would have been powerfully prescient when Oriel Gray wrote the play in 1955. The examination of the roles of women in a male-dominated industry are highlighted as all the male roles are gender-swapped spotlighting the absurdity (and depressing persistence) of such outmoded ideas. Costumes and props are meticulously of their time, while the scene changes are set to exquisite musical arrangements of contemporary pop classics by prominent female artists - Material Girl by Madonna is a particularly fine choice. There is much to like and much to ponder in this play and it's a great start for what promises to be an exciting new company.
5. Sense and Sensibility, Canberra Repertory Society, Theatre 3 - The current vogue for Austen adaptations is to make them all light and frothy and faintly ridiculous. Director Cate Clelland's version of Kate Hamill's script does exactly that on a fabulous set (also designed by Clelland) which keeps the pace of the action, across multiple times and venues, racing along. The older Dashwwod sisters Elinor and Marianne are in the marriage market because their inheritance is sold out from under them by dint of them being female. The new possessor of their former house, Fanny Dashwood (played with bombastic glee by Kayla Cicerna) treats them with disdain, and they resort to stumbling about in the rain and spraining their ankles in an attempt to ensnare husbands to take them away from all this. If there are subtleties and nuances in the novel (and I am assured there are), they are excised from this madcap mayhem. The cast of gossips remain on stage throughout highlighting the lack of privacy and the fact that these would-be suitors and conquests have to conduct their intimate games (and courtship is definitely a spectator sport) in public with dignity, which is missing in action in this production. Elinor (Karina Hudson) is giddy and deliberately irritating rather the sense which is usually a counterpoint to Marianne's (Annabelle Segler) sensibility.  The Missus Steel (Kate Garrow as Lucy and Sienna Curnow as Anne) make the more appealing double act, as their more minor roles suit the cartoonish characterisation the script bestows upon them. The costumes, designed by Anna Senior are sumptuous and draw the eye almost to the detraction of the main event - for example, when Jack Shanahan stands in the background as a gossip and eavesdropper, the wearing of his fabulous military attire make it confusing as to whether he is still playing the cad John Willoughby, and if so, how this will affect the plot. The point is that it doesn't, because that seems to have been discarded in all the fun and frivolity.  

The gossips in Sense and Sensibility

Friday Five: Screen Adaptations

Glenn Close and Robin Williams in The World According to Garp

In all the obituaries afforded Robin Williams and the reviews of his eclectic body of work, I have only once seen a reference to what I consider to be his best film: The World According to Garp. Released in 1982, this was also the debut for Glenn Close and it was a stylish film which left a lasting impression, not least because it was excellent adaptation of a brilliant novel.

It doesn't always work that way. In fact, it very often doesn't. Recently, the film of Life of Pi was a great disappointment, as the novel is one of the best I have read, and the less said about Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby the better. Conversely, Silver Linings Playbook was a very good film although a bit of a shambolic mess as a novel, and Anthony Minghella's The English Patient made a sweeping sentimental saga out of Michael Ondaatje's pretentiously tedious novel.

I finally got round to reading Gone with the Wind earlier this year and I thought it was fantastic, but I have yet to see the film (I will never first see a film if I want to read the book on which it's based) so I can't add that to my list. Because this list is only meant to add up to five, I have got many honourable mentions, such as Trainspotting, which launched careers (Danny Boyle; Ewan McGregor; Robert Carlyle) and brought a raw potency to Irvine Welsh's words, but I didn't like the addition of the female character as a (under-aged) sex interest, which I felt was unnecessary and made me uneasy about exactly to whom this was meant to appeal.

Both One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and To Kill a Mockingbird are excellent adaptations of seriously good novels in the classic American tradition. Stanley Kubrick's version of A Clockwork Orange was challenging and confronting in a way that mirrored Anthony Burgess' dark dystopian vision, although Burgess was unhappy with the altered ending. 

Sam Mendes directs Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio to give outstanding performances in Revolutionary Road, but it doesn't quite make the cut because Richard Yates' heart-rending book is even better. And a special mention has to go 1984, with superb performances from John Hurt, Richard Hamilton and Suzanna Hamilton, and a sensational Eurythmics-driven soundtrack. But good as this film is, it is not in my top ten, whereas the novel most certainly is.

Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility

1. Sense and Sensibility (1995) - Emma Thompson (who wrote the screenplay), Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman star in this classy, funny and lively version of Jane Austen's classic. The nineteen-year old character of Elinor Dashwood was changed to twenty-seven to make it more realistic, both that modern audiences would recognise a spinster and that the thirty-five-year old Thompson could get away with playing her. It works. Supporting cast includes Robert Hardy, Tom Wilkinson, Hugh Laurie, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton, and Imogen Stubbs amongst others.
2. The Color Purple (1985) - Steven Spielberg directed Alice Walker's ground-breaking novel in a film that doesn't just join the dots, but addresses the issues of racism, sexism, poverty and abuse in a whole new manner. Again the soundtrack is exceptional. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards including best picture, best actress (Whoopi Goldberg), best supporting actress (Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey) and best music - it didn't win any, equalling the unenviable record for most Oscar nominations without a win.
3. Misery (1990) - Steven Kings's books make fabulous films (several critics rave about The Shining, Carrie, and Psycho) and this one is a stand-out. James Caan and Kathy Bates are perfectly imperfect together, and the hobbling scene is simply unforgettable. Director Rob Reiner ratchets up the tension and gives us a crazed fan and a psychotic nurse rolled into one. It's deliciously intense and conceptually terrifying.
4. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005) - If you want a director to make an impossible film (Laurence Sterne's literary masterpiece The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is considered uncinematic) you call in Michael Winterbottom. If he wants actors to play multi-layered personas with warmth, wit and deceptive levity, he calls in Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan. This self-referential film is funny, clever and outstandingly entertaining. 
5. A Room with a View (1985) - There aren't enough superlatives for the direction (James Ivory), the acting (Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Daniel Day-Lewis, Julian Sands, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Rupert Graves), the adaptation (Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), the scenery (Florence and Kent), the production values (Ismail Merchant) and the glorious respect displayed for the story by all involved. They've all done E.M. Forster proud.

Julian Sands and Helena Bonham Carter in A Room with a View