“Shakespeare
and His Mistress,”
by Paul Kauffman, directed by Cate Clelland,
For Australian Players ACT Big Band Room, ANU School of Music,
8pm, September 22, 28 and 29.
Phillip Mackenzie
 |
| Kirsty Budding as Emilia Bassano |
'HYPERBOLE' is hardy a strong-enough word to describe the self-indulgent promotion of “Shakespeare and His Mistress” by its author, Dr Paul Kauffmann.
The piece — it can hardly be called 'a play'— is
based on the theory that Shakespeare had a relationship with the historical poet Emila Bassano who, it is posited, collaborated
with him on some significant works and who was possibly the ‘Dark Lady’ of the sonnets.
With the exception of the beautiful costumes (on loan from John
and Aylwen Gardiner-Garden) and, possibly, the music (of which there is quite a
lot) composed by David Pereira, there is very little to commend this
production.
Its script is so stilted and manufactured that few actors, and
none in this cast, could make it work, even if one could hear it, or see much
of the action, beyond, say, row two in the unforgiving concrete box of the Band
Room of the School of Music.
The prospect that this is the first of a proposed triptych is
not something that I look forward to.
