This is the
way to spend a weekend; both parts of Sydney Theatre Company’s The Harp in the
South followed by Candide in a concert version at the Sydney Opera House and
Macbeth from the Pop Up Shakespeare out at the old Showground.
Brief notices
only but four pieces all rather splendid in their own ways.
I can claim to
have been born (but not bred) in 1940s Surrey Hills (Crown St Women’s Hospital)
so some of the resonances of Ruth Park’s three novels (Missus/The Harp in the
South/Poor Man’s Orange) and Kate Mulvany’s poetically and politically powerful
adaptation certainly speak to me.
The struggles
of the Darcy family get the knowing nods of those in the audience who know what
kalsomine was but also what disadvantage might have felt like in the 1940s and
50s. Lost children, unwilling sex, the brothel, the power of the Catholic
church, illegal abortion, gender inequity, violence, inadequate educational
opportunities and powerlessness stand alongside love and the celebration of
origins that are fading from first hand knowledge. The Darcys have a slowly fading Irish heritage among the
indigenous, the Chinese, the arriving Mediterraneans. And Surrey Hills itself
changes as the sound of buildings being demolished echoes through the second
play.
A large and splendid cast including the
likes of Bruce Spence and Tara Morice with particularly striking performances
from Contessa Treffone as Dolour, the younger daughter and eventual rock of the
Darcys and Heather Mitchell as the luminous old Irish
granny Eny Kilker kept two packed houses rapt for an afternoon and an evening.
Tickets have a resemblance to hen’s teeth.
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’
Candide has been and gone
but proved an invaluable chance to see and hear a version of Leonard
Bernstein’s take on Voltaire’s essay on optimism. Mitchell Butel directed the
Sydney Youth Orchestra, a huge choir and a very deft cast in a costumed but
concert version with Brett Weymark holding it all together as conductor. The
restrictions of this occasionally felt as if they were holding back the
performances but it was hard to resist a genial cast with Phil Scott as
narrator/ Dr Pangloss, Carol O’Connor terse and world weary as The Old Lady,
Annie Aitken as a hugely enjoyable Cunegonde and Alexander Lewis as a
convincingly innocent and lyrical Candide.
The
performances might have been straining to burst out of the concert format but
the music was terrific, the chorus’ on stage costume changes transformational
and the final number reconciled us to concentrating on cultivating our
gardens.
Over at what I
suddenly realised was the Royal Easter Showground of my childhood partly
destroyed by the strangely un-entertaining fast food outlets of the
Entertainment Quarter a Kiwi Pop Up Globe is hosting four Shakespeares, one of
which is Macbeth. The space itself
has that intimacy notable in London’s reconstructed Globe and ought to be
visited on study grounds alone.
This version
of the Scottish play has few surprises unless you count having Lady Macbeth
attempting to warn the Macduffs and the three witches occasionally seeming like
a mediaeval Andrews Sisters tribute group.
However, it
does not plod and has the added attraction for younger audiences of sword
fighting and the flinging about of a lot of bodily fluids. I would steer clear of the groundlings
area if blood and urine does not appeal. The witches make especially good use
of multiple trapdoors in the stage which also facilitate the disposal of
corpses, there’s audience interaction and the whole thing moves at commendable
speed.
They are also
offering A Midsummer Nights’ Dream, The Merchant of Venice and The Comedy of
Errors.
Alanna Maclean
