2007<\/p>\n
LyreBird : Tales of Helpmann<\/p>\n
by Tyler Coppin<\/p>\n
State Theatre Company<\/p>\n
Of South Australia<\/p>\n
Space Theatre<\/p>\n
Adelaide Festival Centre<\/p>\n
October 16. Until November 3.<\/p>\n
Tickets $17 – $55.\u00a0 Bookings BASS 131 246<\/p>\n
It was in 1964, in The Display<\/em>, the first fully home-grown work by the Australian Ballet, that choreographer Robert Helpmann introduced the dance of the lyrebird as a metaphor for Australian male attitudes. Now, in a welcome return, nine years after it premiered at the 1998 Adelaide Festival, comes LyreBird;Tales of<\/em> Helpmann<\/em>, Tyler Coppin\u2019s wryly entertaining one-man frolic with the life, accomplishments and feathery flourishes of Helpmann himself.<\/p>\n Helpmann\u2019s biography, rich in detail and in legend, is an ideal focus for a study of the prospects for the artist in Australia over much of the 20th<\/sup> century. Born in parochial Mount Gambier in 1909, the precocious Helpmann must have seemed like a Martian, or a replica of Oscar Wilde at the age of nine. But, with a mother more encouraging than Mrs Worthington and a bewildered father so determined\u00a0 to kick-start his son\u2019s \u201cfancy dancing\u201d career \u00a0that he contacted Anna Pavlova herself, Robert Helpmann had plenty of breeze in his wings. His move to Europe and subsequent career with Sadlers Wells and Margot Fonteyn was extraordinary \u2013 as was his confronting, and often controversial, return to cultural life in Australia in the 1960s.<\/p>\n Set in his dressing room at the interval for Don Quixote<\/em>, a role directed by Nureyev that Helpmann played late in his life, Tyler Coppin\u2019s perceptive, skittish and irreverent script has the hero tilting at a variety of windmills. Among them, his critics, the \u201cmonsters\u201d, who \u2013 as he lasciviously purses \u2013 \u201cwere always either at my feet or at my throat, and never in between.\u201d Wearing hieroglyphic eyeliner and a ton of bling, Coppin\u2019s Bobby is a defiant mix of Quentin Crisp queer pride and a sensitive man still aghast at the ferocity of homophobia in Bondi in the 1920s. LyreBird<\/em> is no idealization, the Robert Helpmann whose name is now linked to academies and awards, is portrayed as part Puck, part Poison Dwarf. His cruelties, well-known and remembered, are evident – especially to his prot\u00e9g\u00e9, James, whose career he discouraged \u2013 and his rampant ego is on full plumage display.<\/p>\n But, given expansive opportunity by director Adam Cook, with an unfussy set by Genevieve Blanchett and splendid lighting from Nigel Levings, Tyler Coppin also brings a droll wit and a raucous energy to the many lives of Robert Helpmann, dancer, choreographer, actor, director and enfant terrible – storming the citadels of Australian culture at a time when any sensible man would have kept his feathers to himself.<\/p>\n Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n The Australian, October 19, 2007, p.12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2007 LyreBird : Tales of Helpmann by Tyler Coppin State Theatre Company Of South Australia Space Theatre Adelaide Festival Centre October 16. Until November 3. Tickets $17 – $55.\u00a0 Bookings BASS 131 246 It was in 1964, in The Display, the first fully home-grown work by the Australian Ballet, that choreographer Robert Helpmann introduced the dance of the lyrebird as a metaphor for Australian male attitudes. Now, in a welcome return, nine years after it premiered at the 1998 Adelaide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-australian-texts","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1490,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions\/1490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}