Rigoletto by Theatreworks, 2 Oct 1994

 

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 2 October 1994

This review was published in the Melbourne Times after 2 October 1994

 

Theatreworks’ Rigoletto is an adaptation of Victor Hugo's Amusing the King, the precursor to Verdi's opera. Director, Robert Draffin, has stirred a hotpot of performance and musical styles together.

 

There are stretches of Verdi's Rigoletto, particularly La Donna e’ Mobile which becomes almost a tragic signature tune for Rigoletto's skateboard ride downhill, and chunks of hilarious club comedy, slapstick and black Berlin cabaret which has echoes of the darkness of Franz Wedekind's Lulu plays.

 

There is something amiss in the world of Rigoletto. He inhabits a world of darkness and deformity, being a hunchback in a hostile environment but he also lives as Jester to the King and is invested with the questionable role of amusing His Majesty with entertaining quips and women to be violated.

 

Strangely, in spite of the dreadful train of events facing Rigoletto and his virginal daughter (Antoinette Halloran) it was the two outsiders to the action who seemed to generate the greatest emotional impact. Heather Bolton's club singer reeked of failure and angst while her every facial twitch commented upon the fate of Rigoletto. Hugh Wayland as the musician and hired killer provided an amoral eye and a wry, critical presence on the sidelines.

 

The classical arias are counterpointed against piano accordion, intoning, clamorous dialogue and modern torch songs sung by Maddalena, (Heather Bolton) a dissolute, dejected and drunken club singer. There is an appropriate desperation and anguish in the at times near-cacophonous soundscape.

 

The content is eclectic and Draffin has employed a style which relies heavily on held moments, silences and intense gazes to heighten the dramatic tension. Characters step in and out of spotlights like rabbits in headlights. While one character is in focus, others cruise the perimeter of the space, disappear behind swathes of red velvet curtaining, tinkle at the piano or sit drinking and smoking a nightclub table drinking. There is always an observer of the action.

 

 Merfyn Owen is a delightfully eccentric, bitter and pained Rigoletto who can carry the classical singing as well as the stand-up comedy routines which he does in his anachronistic nightclub context. Ian Scott has a resonance and power as the immoral and indulged King who parades about his kingdom.

 

Considering the actual horror of the moment, I found the tragic ending surprisingly unmoving. Theatrically and visually it was powerful, but the production leaves us somehow emotionally disconnected from Rigoletto. The emphasis on the music leaves little space for development of the characters and their relationships. In an opera with a full orchestra the thinness of the narrative is compensated by the swell of the orchestral score. This Rigoletto rests somewhere between the two forms of opera and theatre and has yet to successfully blend the two.

 

This work is very new, exciting and has some extraordinary theatrical moments which will certainly develop as the season progresses. It's worth seeing.

 

By Kate Herbert