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| Shae Kelly (Gregorio) - Mark Salvestro (Caravaggio) |
Written and
Directed by David Atfield.
Designed by
Rose Montgomery. Lighting Design by
Gillian Schwab.
Courtyard
Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre 25 – 28th November 2021.
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
Chiaroscuro is the inaugural presentation by the
Canberra Theatre Centre in its New Works Development Program which was
announced earlier in the year. This program is designed to support the creation
and presentation of new performance work from Canberra Artists.
As one of
the first beneficiaries of this program, Canberra playwright, David Atfield,
was granted a four-week rehearsal and presentation residency to develop his
play “Chiaroscuro”. The residency involved two weeks in the rehearsal room, one
week for technical rehearsals and five performances. The residency also
included all venue and associated costs, including technical, box office and
front-of-house staff, as well as artist fees for up to four artists, with the
centre funding all marketing and publicity for the presentation. Originally
programmed for presentation in August, Covid restrictions delayed the premiere
of “Chiaroscuro” until this month.
One of
Canberra’s most experienced playwrights; Atfield is a NIDA graduate who had
studied drama previously at UNSW and acting at the Ensemble. His play Lovely Louise, about silent-film star
Louise Lovely, was selected for the 1998 Australian National Playwrights
Conference. Since then he has written and directed several plays, mainly gay
themed, including Pink Triangles,
Scandalous Boy and Exclusion.
In a similar
vein, Chiaroscuro is inspired by Atfield’s
intense reaction to the Caravaggio painting, “The Raising of Lazarus” which he
encountered some years ago during a visit to Messina in Sicily. The play
concerns an imaginary relationship between the artist Caravaggio, (Mark Salvestro),
and a male prostitute Gregorio (Shae Kelly) hired by Caravaggio as the model
for the figure of Lazarus in his painting.
As the
painting progresses, so does the relationship between Caravaggio and Gregorio, who
challenge each other with probing questions about their religious beliefs and
sexuality. “You smell like someone who’s been dead for four days, but it was
more than your smell that attracted me to you” Caravaggio informs Gregorio, early
in the play, in response to Gregorio’s query as to why Caravaggio chose him as
his model for Lazarus.
Atfield’s
production and direction is uncompromising, confronting and occasionally
frustratingly ambiguous. The dialogue
often seems unnecessarily crude with the actors speaking with Australian
accents, initially rough and streetwise for Gregorio, more cultured for
Caravaggio. As the play progresses
however, Gregorio’s language changes as his questions and responses become more
erudite, until the final denouement when he exits unexpectedly, leaving the
audience to wonder whether there was not more to Gregorio than originally presented.
Both the
actors acquit themselves well in challenging roles. Mark Salvestro is particularly effective in
capturing Caravaggio’s increasing anguish as he wrestles with the conflicts
between his religious beliefs and his sexuality. Remarkably unselfconscious, considering he is
required to spend almost the entire play on stage naked, Shae Kelly gives a
brave and convincing performance as the streetwise young prostitute, Gregorio.
Although Rose
Montgomery’s setting makes effective use of the limited space, and is
successful in suggesting the disarray of an artist’s studio, her lack of
attention to detail was jarring. As items such as Caravaggio’s paint brush,
canvas and easel, wine bottle stopper, and underpants are modern, perhaps this
ambiguity was intended. If so, it was distracting.
Nor was it
helped by Gillian Schwab’s too bright lighting design, which given that the
word used for the title of the play, chiaroscuro, describes the technique
famously used by Caravaggio in his treatment of contrasting light and shadow, too
often missed the opportunities provided by the setting to capture the
theatricality of Caravaggio’s’ painting.
These reservations aside, Chiaroscuro is an ambitious, thought-provoking and entertaining play by David Atfield and an auspicious inaugural presentation for the Canberra Theatre Centre’s New Works Development Program.
Image: Sam Kennedy-Hine
This review also appears in Australian Arts Review. www.artsreview.com.au