Carboni (or The Consequences of Some Pirates Wanting on
Quarter Deck a Rebellion)
by John Romeril La Mama at the Courthouse until July 10,
1999
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
It is chastening that Carboni, which is the only truly
political Australian play in town, was written in 1979. Playwright, John
Romeril, is almost the last of our political playwrights. He is committed to
rabble rousing, lefty shows with funny, musical content.
Romeril took the text for his monodrama directly from
Raffaello Carboni's original work, The Eureka Stockade, written in 1855.
Carboni was an Italian immigrant with a clever, poetic turn of phrase, an
observant eye and a revolutionary's heart. His time on the Ballarat goldfields
was one of the most eventful and bloody in our history since British
settlement.
Adam Cass, directed by Graeme Dale, plays Carboni as an
articulate, worldy Italian who is appalled by the events in Ballarat in the
1850's.
The style of the script is " didactic" theatre in
the best sense of the word. It is informational and "alienates" in the manner of German
playwright Bertolt Brecht, by forcing us to observe and form opinions.
The music is composed by pianist, Anthony Pateras, and played
with Robin Fox on drums and Adele Conlin on violin. It has the clang of Eastern
European folk traditions and echoes Brecht's Mahagonny. George Dreyfuss wrote some
of the original score for the 1979 production.
The direction does not do justice to Romeril's script nor to
Carboni's story. It relies too heavily on broad posturing, which is a poor
replica of Brecht's "Gest": gestural theatre. The shadow images,
inside clunky screens plumped centre-stage, are only partially visible to side
seats.
The music is interesting but so loud, particularly the
drums, that Cass is incomprehensible for large sections of the text in spite of
his big voice.
It requires great skill to carry a solo show and Cass gives
a committed although limited performance. He is mannered, lacks depth and his
character and scene transitions are clumsy. He is more effective in the latter
half when the focus is on Bakery Hill, the massacre and the ensuing court cases
for High Treason. Carboni's graphic detail and emotional language are
compelling here.
After hearign his account of Bakery Hill, it is no wonder
Carboni returned to Italy to soldier for Garibaldi.
By Kate Herbert
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