Written by Tadeusz Rozewicz
By The Mission
At Napier Street Theatre, South Melbourne
Until Feb 19, 1995 8pm Tuesday -Saturday
Reviewer: Kate Herbert early Feb 1995
This review published in The Melbourne Times after 8 Feb 1995. KH
The tail-end of Anthill meeting most of the $5 Theatre Company in new company, The Mission, was an exciting prospect for Melbourne Theatre.
The company's first production, Mariage Blanc (a Polish play, French name), has a strong cast and some striking ideas from director, Suzanne Chaundy, all of which augurs well for future projects.
The play is a product of the 70's "sexual revolution" as well as the political oppression and theatrical daring in Poland over recent decades. It is abstract, absurd and dark in its handling of sexual repression and awakening. Perhaps writer Tadeusz Rozewicz had read too much Freud or too much Timothy Leary.
It somehow felt too much like "Benny Hill goes to Poland." I have never been able to understand the European idea that incest and child / teenage sex is funny. Call me old-fashioned but Grandaddy (a wonderful cameo from Ian Scott) craving the adolescent's smelly stockings caused me to ponder the idiosyncrasies of humour and cultural perversity.
The second half tapped into something much darker and more challenging than the earlier sexual innuendo and childish sex play between the two juvenile sisters (Alice Garner, Nadia Coreno) one of whom is about to marry a complete stranger. Napier Street resounded with the clash of naivete against sexual robustness, of chastity with goaty old lust.
Suzanne Chaundy has come up with some terrific ideas which have, in part, been realised. Susan Bamford's resonant chanting gave an operatic richness and emotional texture to the play. It did, however, become a little predictable.
Symbols abounded: the lusty father in a bull's head, old buckets representing the bride's dowry, a toadstool shaped like a phallus, distressingly blood red walls and floor, tattered furniture. In fact there was such an overload of symbology they often seem unfulfilled, incoherent or unnecessary.
The production in the end has some very funny and challenging moments but its style feels fragmented as it flits from abstraction to near-naturalism to broad farce - and I got sick of the innuendo whatever its intention might be.
by Kate Herbert
No comments:
Post a Comment