The Caretaker

THE CARETAKER

Harold Pinter

Friday 23rd March 2012

Im going to start by saying I'm a massive fan of the work of Harold Pinter. I was introduced to his work in year 10 on an excursion with our drama class to see The Birthday Party. It was and still is, my favourite play to date. I remember clearly reenacting a scene from The Birthday Party with my drama freak friends infront of our class. It was intense. I dont mean to brag but we left the class speechless and I think a little scared of us. It's the highlight of my acting career, probably not for Lauren and Casey though, who went onto study acting at respectable acting schools (just quietly, they are both amazing actors and you should keep and close eye on the two of them. But thats another post altogether!).

Then in year 12 we studied The Caretaker and enjoyed it a little too much...

My friends, Casey and Phil, and I enjoyed studying the text so much that we made a recording of the play for our English teacher as a retirement gift, with ourselves in the starring roles. 

Yeah, we were the cool kids in the class.

At times I had no idea what was going on in the play and found myself yelling

"maybe it dosent mean anything! maybe there is a Buddha on the stove just because!!!"

*I will never know or understand why that Buddha was there...

Nevertheless it was a great play to study and became a great source of inside jokes between Phil and Casey and myself that will forever ingrained into my mind.

SIDCUP!

So Casey, Phil and I jumped at the chance to see The Caretaker at the Adelaide Festival to see if West End powerhouse Jonathan Pryce could do a better job of playing Davies than Phil could in our poor quality recording. 

And wow, could he ever! 

After I got over having a giggle after it dawning on me that Pryce played Governor Swan in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I was able to enjoy the powerful performance of not only Pryce but also Alan Cox and Alex Hassell, Aston and Mick respectively. 

After only reading the play and having no visual and only our own voices to interpret the text it was interesting to see how the characters would come to life and if they would be anything like we had imagined.

The character of Aston was completely different to what I had envisaged in my mind. He was dressed a lot more dapper than I expected and he carried himself a little too confidently I thought for the character who had supposedly been in and institution. It was a little weird to see him so different after we had constructed such strong characters in our own minds back in high school. It goes to show how a text like The Caretaker can be interpreted in so many different ways.   

Jonathan Pryce was of course fantastic, his annoying tramp Davies was perfect. Just the right amount of  annoying and vulnerable. You just wanted him to get his shoes so he could just get out and get his papers!!

Even though you sometimes didn't really know what was going on, as is the nature of Pinter's work, I really enjoyed seeing a text I was so familiar with come to life. Even though I will never quite understand the importance of the Buddha or who in fact was in charge of the place (Aston or Mick?) the play was still compelling and powerful with plenty of tension and hints of comedy that left you shocked, anxious, amused, confused, annoyed, sad and happy all at once and always wanting more. Wanting to ask,

"What's your name!!?"

So now if you excuse me I must get back to fixing that electric plug.

Image Credit: http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/2012/theatre/the_caretaker

A Streetcar

A STREETCAR

Krzysztof Warlikowski

Wednesday 14th March 2012

If you were wise you would not ask me what I thought of A Streetcar, friends of mine were not so wise and were forced to listen unwillingly to me rant and rave for ages about the ordeal that was A Streetcar.  

My strong feelings about the performance had somewhat dissipated over the last month. For time it was all I could talk about, unfortunately it was to tell everybody what a painful experience it was, but then that is the role of theatre, to get people talking and debating.

Lets talk about probably the biggest problem with A Streetcar, the subtitles.
The performance was presented in French with English subtitles (a fact I forgot to tell Mum when I bought the tickets, the slightly alarmed look on her face was rather amusing). But you pretty much only had a choice of either watching the performance or reading the subtitles. They were up way to high for you to be able to both, which could have been a blessing because they just didn't match what the actors were saying. The audience would either be two thoughts ahead or three thoughts behind. It was very confusing and I ended up just watching the actors move about the stage piecing together what was going on from my knowledge of the original text. It would have been impossible for those with no knowledge of the story to follow what was going on.

And then singing happened. In French. For no apparent reason.
I thought to myself, 

"ok that was unnecessary and jarring to the performance, I hope she dosent do it again" 

She did. 

This time in English. And then she spoke to the audience, again im not really sure what we all gained from that other than feeling very awkward, but as long as she doesn't sing again i'll be happy.

Not only did she sing again but this time it went on for half an hour.

At this point i'd like to point out that the duration of the performance was

TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG

oh, and with

NO INTERVAL

This unnecessary singing marathon came towards the end of the performance and it is fair to say it began to feel like some kind of torture. Oh, I have forgotten to mention that he song was accompanied by giant text scrolling up over the stage like the credits at the end of a movie. Who knows what the text said, it was too fast to read and the fact that it was back projected meant that a good chunk of the audience had a light the brightness of the sun shining right into their eyes for half an hour. 

Its pretty clear that I did not enjoy the musical portions of the performance.

And then nudity happened. Full frontal nudity. Again, for no apparent reason.

I literally have no idea who the character was supposed to be.

Was it Mitch? Who knows!?

I sure don't.

 This is probably part of the review (tirade) where I would comment on the performance of the actors. 

But I honestly didn't concentrate much on their performance, my brain was tied up in wondering what the hell was going on.

Famed French film actress Isabelle Huppert played the part of Blanche. I guess she played Blanche well because I couldn't stand her. In the opening scene Huppert was eating bread and delivering the lines so quickly that I thought she was going to choke, it was repulsive to watch and listen to.

I did't really believe the character of Stanley, played by Andrzej Chyra. He wasn't powerful enough it made no sense to me why Stella would keep going back to him. 

Ok this is getting to be a novel.

I will say that the set was amazing for this production. It looked like a bowling alley and had a glass corridor going from left to right that served as the bathroom and other rooms that slid forwards and backwards throughout the performance. It was used very effectively and gave the stage some life.

My favourite part was the use of live video stream. There were three cameras at different points in the theatre that were able to deliver different angles of the actors, some that the audience would not usually be privy to. It helped with the intensity of the performance and delivered strength in the actors words when the subtitles failed. 

When people ask me what I thought of A Streetcar my immediate reaction is to say "it was awful, actually awful". But thats not really fair, there were some great parts its just that the really bad parts brought the whole things down. 

I mean they did put on a performance for two and a half hours without an interval they have to be given props for that.

And if nothing else it got the audience talking.

Or screaming, whichever you prefer.

STELLAAAAAAAAAH!

Image Credit: http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/2012/theatre/a_streetcar

Raoul

RAOUL 

James Thiérrée 

Friday 2nd March 2012

Raoul was a show that I had not heard much about, a one man show that would knock you socks off was pretty much all I had to go on when I was given a free ticket at the end of my volunteer shift. At first I was keen to give the ticket away to any passerby as I was meeting some friends for drinks at another happening festival hot spot. I am soooo happy now that all the people I offered it to already had tickets or just had no idea what I was trying to palm off to them because my goodness does James Thiérrée know how to put on a good show!


I was first struck by the sheer scale of the set, giant billowing sheets of fabric made it feel as if we were looking into a world among the clouds or among the waves. It was then amazing to see these sheets effortlessly unfold and glide into place creating a patchwork backdrop and revealing what appeared to be a  ramshackle homemade hut. 


As soon as that fabric had revealed the stage the magic began. 
Thiérrée's Raoul is a mixture of acrobatics, slapstick, music and dance. The seamless way Raoul tumbles through different encounters and fantasies is almost unbelievable. Thiérrée is able to move his body in such streamlined and fluid movements that he had me on the edge of my seat, mouth open, almost turning the the woman next to me and exclaiming "how is he doing that!!!"


My mind was well and truly blown when Raoul was swirling around with a giant mirror, one moment he was on the stage looking at himself in the mirror, the mirror then obstructed his face from our view and then there he was running through the stalls towards the stage! In the split second that he was near the wings he swapped with his body double and went into the audience. I still dont really understand how it happened, it was so smooth! The talent and accuracy that this show required was really just astounding.


My favourite aspect was how completely foreign the world of Raoul was, what with a giant ghost like elephant, a huge jellyfish, a pretty persistant shellfish roaming about and a house that talks back, but at the same time it is a world that is familiar and instantly recognisable. There is a moment when Raoul struggles to get comfortable in his armchair to read a book, it is a situation that is familiar to so many of us. The fact that Thiérrée can take these ordinary human experiences and make them so beautiful amazes me, I'm sure I resemble more of a fish out of water when getting cozy, but it was reasuring to see that im not the only one who thinks that maybe upside down with my feet in the air might actually be a more comfortable way to sit.


Raoul took my breath away and left me at the edge of my seat from start to finish. 
On leaving the theatre I instantly told all my friends about Raoul, that if they saw one thing at the festival it had to be this. Raoul was the standout performance of the festival.


My selling line to them:

I clapped my hands to bloody stumps.

Image Credit: http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/2012/theatre/raoul