The Memory of Water
\nby Shelagh Stephenson
\nState Theatre Company of SA
\nDunstan Playhouse. August 4<\/p>\n
The Hypochondriac
\nby Moliere, adapted by Paul Galloway
\nBrink Productions
\nThe Space. August 5<\/p>\n
Arabian Night
\nBy Roland Schimmelpfennig
\nAccidental Productions
\nThe Bakehouse. August 13<\/p>\n
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
A death in the family is not only a time of sadness, it also brings together friends, relatives, estranged siblings and blasts from the past. Old griefs join new ones, past memories are not only revived but, as recollections compete, are disputed and even fabricated. Shelagh Stephenson\u2019s 1996 play The Memory of Water<\/i> has three sisters returning to the wintry northern England town of Whitby – to the ghost of their mother and quite a few of their own as well.<\/p>\n
In this State Theatre production, much enhanced by the shrewd detail in Mary Moore\u2019s neatly observed d\u00e9cor, director Catherine Fitzgerald has a sometimes unwieldy task with Stephenson\u2019s over-long script, as it moves between drawing room black comedy and the pathos and regret of secrets and betrayals. Of course, deaths and funerals are noted for their wild mood swings, but the capable cast often finds the dramatic development they work hard to achieve is undercut by glib one-liners and extended farce.<\/p>\n
As Mary, the neurologist returning to discover painful revelations about a lost child, Ulli Birve is especially memorable, but despite some repetitive text, Kate Roberts and Nadia Rossi, as sisters Theresa and Catherine, also do well. Peter Ferris and Tony Briggs engagingly play the bewildered blokes and Eugenia Fragos is intriguing as Vi, the mother both misunderstanding and misunderstood.<\/p>\n
There is nothing more sickening than the exploitation of the seriously ill, but when the healthy delude themselves that they need constant medical attention they become figures of fun. Moliere\u2019s The Hypchondriac<\/i> (aka The Imaginary Invalid<\/i>) is a four hundred year old reminder that, when lacking proportion, our fear of mortality makes us gullible as well as laughable. In Brink Productions\u2019 excellent production, based on a freshly tweaked adaptation by Paul Galloway, Argan, the central character, splendidly played by Paul Blackwell, is so self-preoccupied he can\u2019t tell his friends from his enemas.<\/p>\n
With Wendy Todd\u2019s simple draped set, Stuart Day\u2019s apt and amusing onstage music, and Geoff Cobham\u2019s expressive lighting, the Brink crew bring briskness and flair to the commedia dell\u2019 arte<\/i> set pieces about foolish fathers, thwarted lovers, clever servants and nasty imposters which Moliere appropriated to make his own artful and trenchant social observation.<\/p>\n
The actors excel – Jacqy Phillips as the outspoken Toinette, Emily Branford and Nathan O\u2019Keefe as the star-crossed lovers and Rory Walker as a slippery lawyer and a gormless suitor \u2013 preferred by Argan for his daughter\u2019s hand because he is a doctor and thus able to give the old miser 24 hour medical attention. Carmel Johnson plays, with relish, the scheming wife, Beline, Terence Crawford brings common sense as Argan\u2019s brother, Beralde and Edwin Hodgeman is mesmerically funny with his medico-babble as the bogus dottore<\/i> Diafoirus.<\/p>\n
And Blackwell\u2019s Argan, whether counting his money, berating his family, or fawning to his doctors, is a marvellous portrait of comic folly. With its slopping chamber pots, orchestrated flatulence, its irrigations and emetics, the production reminds us of the low comedy of the body, while its sharply fashioned wit provides cerebral pleasures also. The Hypochondriac<\/i> is another Brink production destined for wider success . This is a medicine show that should definitely go on the road.<\/p>\n
Now in their sixth production, Accidental Productions are charting progress that is anything but accidental. Arabian Night<\/i>, a phantasmagoria by German writer Roland Schimmelpfennig, turns the everyday lives of tenants in an apartment block into a dream – and then nightmare – of illusion, transformation and deadly retribution. Ably directed by Joh Hartog with a cleverly thrifty design by Casey van Sebille, and strong performances, especially from Alice Darling, Brendan Rock and Jessica Barnden, Arabian Night<\/i> is a magic carpet ride both fascinating and unsettling.<\/p>\n
Commissioned but not published by The Adelaide Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Memory of Water by Shelagh Stephenson State Theatre Company of SA Dunstan Playhouse. August 4 The Hypochondriac by Moliere, adapted by Paul Galloway Brink Productions The Space. August 5 Arabian Night By Roland Schimmelpfennig Accidental Productions The Bakehouse. August 13 Reviewed by Murray Bramwell A death in the family is not only a time of sadness, it also brings together friends, relatives, estranged siblings and blasts from the past. Old griefs join new ones, past memories are not only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,5,14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adelaide-companies","category-archive","category-state-theatre-company","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326","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=2326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2327,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326\/revisions\/2327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}