Love and Information - Hayman Theatre Company (1 March 2016)

I was talking to Director Teresa Izzard after the play and she gave me an insight into the particular challenges in presenting celebrated playwright Caryl Churchill’s script. No character names; a cavalcade of vignettes with no settings, no stage directions, no through line; and a rough structure of seven headings where individual scenes could be slotted into any order. It sounded like a Theatre Makers Do-It-Yourself Kit. Here’s a box of pieces with no instructions for assembly, now go make something.

This, of course, gives the director, actors, and the design team a great deal of freedom in how to present and interpret this mass of information. It also makes things a little problematic from an audience perspective. You quickly come to realise that there isn’t going to be any kind of traditional narrative. I could sit here and try and draw thematic threads out of it all and certainly there are touchstones such as fidelity, memory, childhood and the like. But really, for me, this was like a collection of audition scenes or, perhaps more aptly, a Showcase on Speed.

Once I realised this I settled into enjoying the production for what it was instead of trying to analyse it to determine what it might have been. The Showcase analogy seems most appropriate and certainly this was an excellent introduction into the performance and technical capabilities of this year’s Curtin University students. Izzard keeps things rattling along as scenes follow each other in rapid succession or even overlap briefly as the actors rotate through scenarios and personas with alacrity.

For the first time that I have seen, the black box space of the Hayman Theatre Upstairs was transformed with a built in set – white flats on three sides with three doors that were used with dizzying frequency. There were also white blocks that increased in number throughout the performance until there were fully a dozen on stage. The actors added to and changed their configuration to provide the basic setting of whatever situation they found themselves in. This was enhanced by use of projected images and the title of the scene. Those titles most often than not were a single word. The lighting and sound design added the final layer with the impressive use of lasers at one point and everything from pumping dance music to static as transitions took place.

This all created a vibrant space for the actors to work in and they used it to maximum effect. Those eight actors are Lauren Beeton, Declan Brown, Eloise Carter, Chelsea Gibson, Anna Lindstedt, Holly Mason, Nelson Mondlane, and Jess Nyanda Moyle. It was a very good ensemble with each actor having to inhabit a range of vastly different characters and make them believable in very short time spans. I also appreciated the physicality involved as different combinations of actors clambered over each other and those blocks or were dancing, at times full tilt. One of the standout scenes simply called Wife involved Moyle and Brown in a ballet like sequence of intense emotion and intimacy that utilised all of the stage to stunning effect.

That, however, is where the success or otherwise of the play as a collection of fractured parts rests. Scenes work better than others to highlight the talents on display. Some are no more than brief interludes that whizz by before the next vignette begins. Like any audition piece it’s the selection of the material that goes a long way to determining the outcome. Every actor has a chance to shine and it’s very much an equal opportunity piece from that regard.

From an audience viewpoint it probably ended at about the right time as I was beginning to weary of the conceit. There was no connective tissue and no one thread or character I could hang my hat on. As a true showcase of acting and technical ability, however, it certainly set the scene nicely for what should be another strong season for Curtin’s Hayman Theatre Company.  

Love and Information is being performed at the Hayman Theatre Upstairs on the Curtin University campus until Saturday 5th March.  

Spring Awakening - Hayman Theatre Company (3 March 2015)

I remarked to one of the actors that I needed to “think about the play” as we were talking after the show. She replied along the lines of, “you always say that about the shows I’m in.” That may indeed be true but is testament to the sort of interesting material I've seen performed by Curtin University's Hayman Theatre Company in the last year or so.  

I found Spring Awakening, a play I was not familiar with (and distinct from the much later musical adaptation), to be quite challenging. Its language is as dense as its thematic complexity and I had not expected the two and a half hour running time (plus intermission). It demanded a lot of its audience and certainly did of its actors. For a student production it is an audacious choice and there is much to admire about the result. However, some actors fared better than others with the incredibly difficult dialogue that at times was alliteration happy and a little florid to my modern ears. It also felt overwritten and could have used some judicious editing but perhaps that is more to do with present day attention spans more than a century on from its original conception. Having said all that, a great deal of thought and skill has gone into its staging.

The story itself, in essence, centres around two 14 year olds – Wendla (Beth Tremlett) and Moritz (Alexander Gerrans) - who are totally unprepared for their sexual awakening; and the impact a more self-aware Melchior (Sean Guastavino) has on both of their lives resulting in his own demise. Rape, abortion, suicide, depression, and the recriminations and judgment of the “powers-that-be”, whether parents, teachers, or the church, marked this as controversial in its day. It still packs a wallop even now and there is an undercurrent of very black humour throughout.

I must admit it began to coalesce into something far more cohesive for me in the second half when the ramifications of the ‘sins’ in the first two acts are ‘judged’. In many ways, as I remarked to the director afterwards, A Clockwork Orange reminded me of it in that regard. That Melchior is ‘put on trial’, rightly for his treatment of Wendla and unfairly for ‘educating’ Moritz, and his defiance in the face of withering condemnation is compelling. The play takes a surreal turn at the end when he is confronted by two figures in a graveyard having escaped the reformatory he was banished to by his parents. The identity of one of these is not in doubt; the other defiantly mysterious. It is left to the audience to decide what Melchior’s fate will ultimately be.    

This is perhaps the best looking production I have seen at the Hayman Theatre Upstairs. It is beautifully lit with a clear distinction in lighting choices between the two halves as the realism of the first two acts gives way to the symbolism of the third. The stage is well presented with a ramp that the actors could clamber on, under, and through; a divan; and multitudes of paper strips depicting the winter forest very effectively. Actors also perched themselves along the side walls of the theatre to great effect. There was the appropriate use of ominous or evocative music as the scene demanded.

The costuming was excellent and I particularly liked the work of the ensemble to re-enact key events in the back stories of the principals or add texture and context. They were mostly clad in old fashioned white cotton attire that was evocative and a representation of ‘purity’.

To the performances and Tremlett inhabits Wendla with great spirit but her character is undone by a dangerous naivety fostered by her Mother (Kayla MacGillivray). The importance of knowledge, especially in regard to sexuality is a major thematic component. That Wendla is denied this knowledge makes her vulnerable and Tremlett plays this confusion well. That the ultimate arc is one of tragedy, the transformation from high-spirited innocent to being physically and emotionally crippled is well rendered. Guastavino plays Melchior with a calm resoluteness and sweet smile that belies the terrible acts his character commits especially against Wendla, the worst of which is harrowing and drew an audible exclamation from an audience member behind me. Gerrans battled gainfully with some truly difficult blocks of dialogue but admirably retained his composure though he was the least confident of the three with the language. His reappearance in the third act, however, was well done as it echoed the story Moritz had told (and discounted) earlier.

The support was very good with Jeremy Bunny impressive as Hansy; Gemma Middleton revelling in a long monologue as Ilse; Amelia Tuttleby particularly forceful as Melchior’s mother; and Savannah Wood playing varying roles as she brought what otherwise would have been straight verbal descriptions to vivid, at times, wailing life. Nathan Whitebrook gives a charismatic cameo at the end.

The acts of violence are well-handled and, as mentioned, director Teresa Izzard utilises the ensemble to give this real movement and energy as well as allowing all the actors to maximise the potential of the performance space. It is at times a difficult watch but a rewarding one as it prompts discussion and further thought which is always to be embraced. 

Spring Awakening is directed by Teresa Izzard with a translation of the original German script (Frank Wedekind) by Jonathan Franzen, and stars Jeremy Bunny, Jarryd Dobson, Alexander Gerrans, Sean Guastavino, Kayla MacGillivray, Gemma Middleton, Aaron Smith, Terence Smith, Beth Tremlett, Amelia Tuttleby, Nathan Whitebrook and Savannah Wood. The show is at the Hayman Theatre Upstairs and runs until Saturday 7 March.