Maestro
\nBy Anna Goldsworthy and Peter Goldsworthy
\nState Theatre Company of South Australia
\nHer Majesty\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide.
\nMarch 3. Tickets $45 – $60. Bookings BASS 131 246
\nUntil March 11.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is the difference between good and great ?\u201d Paul Crabbe, the eager boy pianist from Darwin keeps asking his enigmatic, Viennese trained teacher. \u201cNot much\u201d is his answer \u2013 \u201clittle bits.\u201d Peter Goldsworthy\u2019s masterful novel Maestro<\/i> has intrigued readers since it first appeared twenty years ago and now, in collaboration with his daughter, musician and writer Anna Goldsworthy, he has adapted it for the stage.<\/p>\n
For the many admirers of the novel, much has been recognizably retained \u2013 the damp and restrictive atmosphere (both culturally and meteorologically) of Darwin in the sixties, the pressures on a talented boy becoming alienated from his familiars as he discovers a world elsewhere. The conversations about art \u2013 especially from the Maestro, Eduard Keller \u2013 and its limitations in the face of history are well explored. As is the pleasure in music, now concentrated especially on the lieder and piano works of Schubert , and, in Paul\u2019s flirtation with rock\u2019n\u2019roll, on Elvis Presley\u2019s Hound Dog.<\/i><\/p>\n
Dealing capably with a last minute transfer to Her Majesty\u2019s after the Playhouse refit was delayed, director Martin Laud Gray, who worked with Goldsworthy previously on his zany comedy of ethics, Honk if You Are Jesus<\/i>, has, with the use of the revolve and Mary Moore\u2019s well-observed teak and tropical settings and Viennese back-projections, astutely managed the range of the narrative.<\/p>\n
But, building on the shift to a broader style in the Goldsworthys\u2019 text, he allows the comedy to become shrill. Hardly noted in the novel, the character Betty Rollo (admirably managed by Michaela Cantwell) is fully blown into a warbling sixties version of Kath Day-Knight, while Paul\u2019s rocker chums Scotty and Jimmy (the valiant Tim Lucas and Joseph del Re) are given second-rate Fonzie schtick to deal with.<\/p>\n
In a play which invites us to recognize and value nuance this heavy-handed cultural cringe sits uneasily against the central material which, already working well, needs no drastic shifts of mood or tone. Other characterisations fare better \u2013 Ellen Steele as the fresh young Rosie Zollo, and Kate Roberts and Geoff Revell as Paul\u2019s parents. The versatile Revell is also memorable as the musician Henisch.<\/p>\n
In the leads – as Paul, Luke Clayson is excellent as the unworldly but ambitious teenager inquisitively delving the hidden life of his teacher. As is Dennis Olsen as Keller, like the stricken father in Schubert\u2019s The Earl King<\/i>, frozen with guilt at the death of his son. Their scenes together are the heart of the play, and where the best writing is. The final scene especially, brings together that blend of thought and feeling, those \u201clittle bits\u201d which take us from the good to something much greater.<\/p>\n
Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
\u201cIn thrall to the master\u201d, The Australian, March 5, 2009, p.10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maestro By Anna Goldsworthy and Peter Goldsworthy State Theatre Company of South Australia Her Majesty\u2019s Theatre, Adelaide. March 3. Tickets $45 – $60. Bookings BASS 131 246 Until March 11. \u201cWhat is the difference between good and great ?\u201d Paul Crabbe, the eager boy pianist from Darwin keeps asking his enigmatic, Viennese trained teacher. \u201cNot much\u201d is his answer \u2013 \u201clittle bits.\u201d Peter Goldsworthy\u2019s masterful novel Maestro has intrigued readers since it first appeared twenty years ago and now, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16,14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-australian-texts","category-state-theatre-company","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330","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=2330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2331,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions\/2331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}