Books, Movies and Random Thoughts

Before seeing Democracy, I knew as much about post-War German politics as I did about British Rail before seeing The Permanent Way. So I have absolutely no idea how accurate a portrayal it was of the personalities involved. However, it was a compelling piece of stagecraft, and regardless of whether or not they were true to life, the characters were interesting. It was quite strange to see a play with ten characters, all of them male.

By a fluke, this was the “Night with the Actors”, where after the performance the actors come back on stage and answer questions asked by any of the audience who have cared to stay for it. They said that the number of characters, the pace of the dialogue and the speed of exits and entrances made it almost like playing a farce – except, of course, that the subject matter was totally different.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get up the nerve to ask a question. I would have liked to know how Paul Goddard felt about his part. He played Arno Kretschmann (Guillaume’s Stasi controller), and he was onstage for almost the entire play, but spent most of it off to the side, observing the action. The only character he actually interacted with was Guillaume. I’d be curious to find out whether this makes it more or less draining as an actor. I’m inclined to think it would be more so – having to stay focussed the entire time, but mostly without dialogue to support engagement with the character.

It was a completely different sort of play from Copenhagen (the only other Michael Frayn play I have seen), but just as worthwhile a night at the theatre.

Another year, another Williamson play. Actually, that’s not quite true, as we tend to only see the “new Williamson” every three or four years or so.

I quite enjoyed the first half of this one – it wasn’t up to his vintage work, but it was enjoyable. The performances were all good, and I liked the fact that all of the characters (except Zehra) were treated unsympathetically, regardless of whether they were left- or right-wing. I found the character of Vivienne Blasko particularly fun in her completely unashamed self-absorption.

It went a bit soft in the second half, though. By the end, most of the characters (even, in a way, Vivienne) had become “nice” in order to set off Ziggi. It would be more interesting if they could retain some of their flaws.

This is the third time I have seen Sarah McLachlan live. Last year, when she was at the State Theatre, we went twice – mainly because our seats for the first show were in the second back row, so when a second show was announced I was first in line at Ticketek and got in the second front row. We had originally planned to then sell off the other tickets, but in the end it seemed like too much hard work, so we went twice and loved it both times. Probably it was excessive to go a third time, but who knows how long it will be before she comes to Australia again – if ever. Also, we thought it would be a buzz to see her at the Opera House.

Normally when we go to the Opera House we’re seeing something in the Drama Theatre, or the Playhouse, which are off to the side. But this was in the Concert Hall, so we got to go in properly through the front door. (And I have to say that the Ladies’ Toilets are much nicer there than at the Drama Theatre/Playhouse. Obviously music lovers rate higher quality conveniences than theatregoers.)

It was more or less the same playlist as her concerts last year, but the order was shuffled around a bit, and some of the presentations were different. There may also have been some songs added or removed – I don’t have 100% recall of each and every song she did.

She described it as her favourite songs from her last three albums. Sadly, this meant no “I Will Not Forget You”, no “Lost” and no “Back Door Man” – three of my favourites, but all from her second album, Solace. She obviously also rates “Full of Grace”, from Surfacing, lower than I do (or maybe she just feels its been a bit overplayed). And while it was to be expected that she would have most of the tracks from her most recent album, Afterglow, I was disappointed that “Time” was missing, since it’s one of my top 3 from this album.

On the plus side, though, the performances of “Push” and “Answer” (my other two Afterglow favourites) were wonderful. I’m pretty sure that at the State Theatre she had “Angel” as her final encore – here it was much earlier in the playlist. It’s one of those songs that when you know and love it from the album, you (or, at least, I) can’t quite accept it being sung even slightly differently, so while it was beautiful, it just wasn’t quite right. OTOH, “Fear” was pretty incredible, as was “Hold On” and “World on Fire”.

The absolute highlight, though, was “Possession”. I have always loved the piano version, and been a bit ho-hum about other versions. At the State Theatre she did a totally full-on version of it, which you could feel right in your stomach, and which, somewhat to my own surprise, I absolutely loved. This time it was different – she started out with the beautiful piano version, and segued into the dramatic style. Taken as a whole, it just blew me away.

Another good night at the theatre, though again I didn’t get quite what I was expecting. The concept is that Steven Berkoff chats to the audience about a number of Shakespeare’s villains, interspersed with acting significant scenes from each. The villains include most of the usual suspects – Iago, the Macbeths, Shylock and Richard III – along with some more controversial selections such as Hamlet, Coriolanus and Oberon.

The talk (which I gather is unscripted, but probably covers the same general areas each night) was partly psychological analysis of the characters, partly an actor’s perspective of playing them, partly theatrical traditions surrounding the plays and a bit of general “actor’s life” chit-chat (and bitchiness). This was more or less what I had expected (well, maybe not the chit-chat/bitchiness) and it was interesting, enjoyable and amusing.

I was a bit surprised, though, that when he was actually giving excerpts from the parts he did a lot of them over the top for laughs. This was particularly apparent with the Macbeth bit (where he did both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) and with Hamlet (Hamlet, Gertrude and Polonius). I guess he has been doing this for a lot of years, and knows what will work for the audience. And it was undeniably funny. But I was glad he chose to do Coriolanus straight.

This was the first play in our Sydney Theatre Company subscription for this year. I didn’t know anything about it, aside from the fact that it was by David Hare and was about British Rail. If I thought about it at all, I probably expected something along the same lines of last year’s Harbour – a fictional story, with a bit of an agenda, about a group of fictional people in a real situation.

I certainly didn’t expect what we got – something a lot like a documentary, consisting entirely of interviews, but with actors playing the parts of the interviewees. From the program, it appears that the actors (this was the original cast, not an Australian production) had been involved in the interview process.

Initially, I wasn’t quite sure how to take this. The beginning was about the actual privatisation of British Rail, and I didn’t think the approach would be sustainable for an entire play.

However, it turned out that the main focus was on four different rail disasters, which were, arguably, a result of the privatisation. So the people talking included survivors and bereaved (people who had lost relatives in the crash), as well as some of the decision makers in the companies involved. It was absolutely riveting stuff. In particular, an interesting dichotomy came through in the different attitudes of the survivors and the bereaved – the survivors having a desire to ensure that a similar accident never happened again, but mainly just wanting to get on with their lives; and the bereaved wanting someone to blame for the loss of their loved ones.

Not a happy play, but a very powerful one.

Like most Australians of my generation, I grew up on The Goodies, watching them every afternoon after school as the ABC ran the episodes again and again and again. So when I heard that they performing live in Sydney, there was absolutely no way I wasn’t going. No matter that they are all in their 60s, and there was a real possibility that the show would be quite dull – it was just one of those things I had to do.

As it turned out, the show was far from dull. It had its ups and downs, but basically they are still very funny. They did a sketch from I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again which went on a bit too long (and I didn’t think was very funny in ISIRTA anyway). Showing excerpts from the shows didn’t do too much for me either, since I’ve seen most of them relatively recently anyway, but I realise not everyone in the audience has cable TV, so for some it would be their first viewing in years.

Most of the show was structured around the three of them telling anecdotes, and reading out and answering questions. I think this probably worked a lot better than trying to turn the TV program into a stage show. However, there were a few brief sketches, such as Bill’s and Graeme’s Cambridge Circus auditions (plus the aforementioned ISIRTA bit) to add variety. And it was funny. And interesting. And I had a good time.

I didn’t know whether or not I’d enjoy this one. I had bought tickets on the basis of Queen music plus Ben Elton dialogue, but I wasn’t sure I’d really enjoy the music without Freddy Mercury’s voice; and then I read a really negative review of it in the Sydney Morning Herald.

However, having paid for the tickets, we went along … and had a great evening. I guess I can see why the Herald was so negative. As a musical, the plot and characterisation were minimal in the extreme, and the songs didn’t always fit in that neatly. However, taken as a show, the production values were good, the Elton dialogue was funny and the Queen music was great – and while the songs weren’t the same being performed by non-Queen singers, for the most part they still worked. Of course, some were better than others. I was a bit underwhelmed by Galileo’s (Michael Falzon’s) rendition of “I Want to Break Free”, but he was much better later – I guess since it was his first song, he was saving himself.

It said in the program that Ben Elton had made changes for the Australian audience. I expected it just to be a couple of lines, here and there. In fact, it was a lot of lines. (Probably more than I actually recognised – I have to admit, I initially missed the Wiggles joke.)

All in all, I had a great time. If it wasn’t so expensive, I’d almost be inclined to go again.

P.S. December 2004
In spite of the cost, I did end up going again. And had just as much fun the second time.

This was not what you might call a subtle production. For me, Twelfth Night is primarily a poetic love story, in which the Malvolio subplot interferes. This director obviously preferred to emphasise the bawdy aspects of the play. Feste, in particular, was rather more crass than I would have liked – though I can’t deny he was funny.

I’m not a huge fan of Twelfth Night done in modern dress. However, allowing for this, I did quite like some of the costuming choices. Sir Andrew as sort of would-be tough punk was fun, as was Orsino listening through earphones to music on an MP3 player (although I wouldn’t have said it had a “dying fall”). I also rather liked the rent-a-cop look of Orsino’s guards. Viola managed to look very much like a scruffy teenage boy, which was effective in some scenes, but did lead one to wonder what Olivia found to fall in love with. I was unpleasantly reminded of the American court case about the teacher who had entered into a relationship with a 14-year-old (?) student.

The production opened with Viola and Sebastian in the storm. They used real water, but unfortunately, because they obviously couldn’t flood the whole stage, it looked rather more like Viola and Sebastian under the shower. It was actually a lot more effective at the end, when they reused the apparatus to make it rain on Feste as he finished singing “Wind and the Rain”.

I didn’t find any of the performances particularly outstanding, though neither were they particularly bad. I probably enjoyed Genevieve Hegney’s Olivia the most. I thought Viola was very patchy, but then she is my absolute favourite heroine in all of Shakespeare, and I have some very firm ideas about her character, so I suppose I was bound to be disappointed. Nevertheless, I don’t think Caroline Craig is any threat to my two all-time favourite Violas – Felicity Kendal (1980 BBC TV production) and Imogen Stubbs (1996 film).

The production emphasised the broad humour, and somewhat de-emphasised the poetry, of the play. Not really my preferred balance, but nonetheless an enjoyable evening at the theatre.