Midnite
An Opera created by Raffaele Marcellino
and Doug McLeod based on the novel by Randolph Stow

Windmill Productions and OzOpera in association
with State Theatre Company of South Australia
Dunstan Playhouse
5 July. 2005

Murray Bramwell

Randolph Stow’s zany bushranger story, Midnite, is a very likely choice for a theatre work for children. Along with his quirky companions – Khat the talking Siamese pussycat, Major the cockatoo and Red Ned his trusty steed – Midnite (spelt that way , Khat tells us, because there is nothing romantic about good spelling) takes to a life of cheerful crime. Hold-ups, money and watches are his thing and Trooper O’Grady is his constant, frequently successful, nemesis. But while Midnite enrages the blokes, the ladies – Mrs Chiffle and, especially, the lovely Laura Wellborn, fancy him more than somewhat. Pity he is a penniless crim. But wait, there’s more. He discovers dollops of gold and reinvents himself as the fabulously rich Mr Daybrake.

In a joint production with Opera Australia’s OzOpera, Windmill Productions has turned Midnite into a chamber work for young people – a tall task for composers Raffaele Marcellino and Doug McLeod and a logistical challenge for director Adam Cook. The show has many strengths – not least the snazzy design from Mark Thompson. With the stage (and the ubiquitous Adelaide Art Orchestra) framed with layered flats of filigree foliage, delectably lit by Gavan Swift, the production features meticulously stitched colonial dresses beaded in extravagant blacks, a large scale puppet of Queen Victoria (complete with talking bustle !) a delightfully detailed Major, a large fluffy dog and step-in costumes for Khat, Red Ned and Dora the cow.

Mark Brady is a perky Captain Midnite and Gary Rowley makes the most of O’Grady, especially when disguised as the pepperpot Hairy Godmother. Annabelle Redman’s Laura is a study in demure maidenliness and Caroline Vercoe is droll as Mrs Chiffle. Paul Blackwell adds his amusingly tetchy signatures as the judge and Anna Margolis is suitably silky as Khat. But Marcellino’s music, accomplished though it is, is rather serious and undistinguished, and McLeod’s libretto, while true to Stow, is too linear in its narrative.

There are not enough highs and lows for director Adam Cook to work with and he has a task also linking the vernacular singing of Brady’s Midnite with the (often indistinct ) formal soprano of Caroline Vercoe doubling as a narrator. There are problems with the comedy too. One of the few stand-out songs has Daybrake boasting about his wealth and the fact that the poor have none – which, he chortles, “ is only fair”. I’m not sure these ironies are self-evident to young audiences. Midnite is a valiant project but its strongest responses from the children on first night were to incidental moments of slapstick while much of the artifice seemed beyond them. It may be that they would have preferred a hoary old panto to a chamber opera with this degree of formality. As Midnite himself is inclined to say – such is life.

Commissioned by The Adelaide Review but not published