Master Class by Terrence McNally. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, June 14 – July 20 2024.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
June 29
Playwright: Terrence McNally
Director: Liesel Badorrek; Assistant Director: Miranda Middleton
Musical Director/Cast/Composer & Sound Designer: Maria Alfonsine
Cast/Composer & Sound Designer: Damian de Boos-Smith
Cast: Elisa Colla; Cast: Lucia Mastrantone
Cast: Bridget Patterson; Cast: Matthew Reardon
Set & Costume Designer: Isabel Hudson; Costume Supervisor: Renata Beslik
Lighting Designer: Kelsey Lee
Dialect Coach: Linda Nicholls-Gidley; Operatic Voice Coach: Donna Balson
Theatre Stage Manager: Jen Jackson; Rehearsal Stage Manager: Emily Phillips
Photos: Prudence Upton
I’m not sure if Ensemble Theatre has reverted to the hippy days of collectivism, but their program calls all the cast members merely “Cast”. I agree all cast members are equal, as performers, but I like to know who played the different characters.
Maria Alfonsine is the accompanying pianist for Maria Callas’s master classes. She is astute and careful to play an unassuming role as Manny, recognising Maria’s emotional frailty and providing just the support she needs.
Bridget Patterson as the first inexperienced soprano student, Sophie de Palma, doesn’t understand why her teacher is so uncompromising, and gives up in tears, despite a top-quality singing voice.
Damien de Boos-Smith has no name as the unfortunate comic stagehand that Maria treats as an idiot. But we also know him as the secret cello player who accompanies Maria Alfonsine so well.
Matthew Reardon is Anthony (Tony) Candolini, the student not only with a tenor voice to die for, but the sense of humour and confidence that his teacher cannot easily deal with. Perhaps she lets him go because he doesn’t need her; or because she couldn’t teach him if she tried.
Elisa Colla as Sharon Graham is the one that Maria knows will make it as a performer, so long as she can cope with life in the theatre world – on stage and in personal relationships.
Lucia Mastrantone has the role as Maria Callas which links us, in our role as potential Master Class students, to her at the time in her life when her voice, health and personal relationships are failing. If she cannot perform any longer, perhaps she can at least leave a worthwhile legacy through her master classes for the new performers coming through.
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| Damian de Boos-Smith |
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| Bridget Patterson as Sophie de Palma with Lucia Manstrantone as Maria Callas |
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| Elisa Colla as Sharon Graham with Lucia Manstrantone as Maria Callas and pianist Maria Alfonsine as Manny |
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| Matthew Reardon as Anthony (Tony) Candolini with Lucia Manstrantone as Maria Callas and pianist Maria Alfonsine as Manny |
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| Lucia Manstrantone as Maria Callas with Damian de Boos-Smith (cello) and Maria Alfonsine (piano) |
As a one-time drama teacher myself I hear the truth in Maria’s attempts to make her students understand the shift they must make beyond technique, and certainly not by imitation – which my teacher, Anton Witsel, called “acting acting” – into acting from within yourself.
Ton Witsel also warned me of how easy it is in theatre to “fall flat on your face”. It can happen in the writing. It can happen in the set design, the costumes design, the directing, and in the actor’s acting. Theatre is always at risk of a flop.
Terrence McNally could have got it wrong about the real Maria Callas – but he has not written a documentary. This play is his imagining how things might have gone for her, and these characters are his creation. The real Maria died of a heart-attack when she was 53 in 1977. Are these characters costumed as they would have been then? It doesn’t matter! But they are costumed just right for the Maria we see to react to them as she does.
But the real risk in performing McNally’s play is that the actors, including whoever plays Maria Callas, have to understand and be able work in the way that Maria says they must. This means those playing Sophie, Tony and Sharon have to be able to work from within themselves, acting and singing, showing us that their characters don’t understand – yet – how to work from within.
This really is risky theatre. But, surely thanks to sensitive directing from Liesel Badorrek and Miranda Middleton and the wide range of experiences these actors already have (and presumably how well they learned from their drama teachers), there are no flops here.
Quite the opposite. The audience rose to their feet in appreciation for a new understanding of this prima donna, not as the difficult personality, nor the aggressive competitor, nor the publicity hound, nor the money-grubber, nor the failure in marriage, but as the woman who found herself, in performing from within, and so became the greatest opera singer, even despite probably the worst that could happen, when her child was still-born.
The season runs until July 20 – there is still time to make the journey to the Kirribilli boathouse, Ensemble Theatre. https://www.ensemble.com.au
