Greg Carroll – Theatre Press

Tense, difficult, wonderful drama

By Margaret Wieringa

The house lights have been brought down slowly. The audience remains in the quiet and dark for a long moment before the lights snap on and three actors stand, staring off stage: inert, but not quite frozen. Then banging and shouting from offstage, fear flashes on their faces, and the tension of the next hour or so is set.

Premiering in Australia after winning awards as a radio drama and during its season at the Edinburgh Festival, Glory Dazed by Cat Jones is the story of a soldier returned from serving in Afghanistan who cannot settle back into life in Northern England.

It is Andre De Vanny as ex-soldier Ray who carries this performance, capturing all of the anger, fear and vulnerability of a displaced young man who feels hard-done by his circumstances – but demands to be acknowledged. It is a familiar character, the type of man who you may see in a pub or stumbling down the street and you know to avoid because his emotions are expressed through aggression and derision. In the tiny theatre at Red Stitch, it is impossible to escape, and De Vanny made this a wonderfully difficult play to watch.

While Ray is a man I don’t want to encounter, it is the other characters that I empathise with, trapped with this unpredictable time-bomb. Jonathan Peck captures the vulnerability of Simon who is no physical match for Ray, yet needs to find a way to stand up to him. Then there is Leanne, played by Laura Jane Turner, the young staff member who is naïve enough to flirt with the handsome, charming Ray and be taken into his games even when his darker side is revealed. And then Carla. Oh, Carla. Emily Goddard broke my heart as the ex-wife who needs to be free from this animal, yet can see the broken man beneath the bravado.

It was as much the space and the silences that made this performance: director Greg Carroll let the story unfold slowly, with all the pain that this involved. Sometimes, theatre hurts.

Venue: Red Stitch Actors Theatre, Rear 2 Chapel Street, St Kilda East
Season: 23 July – 23 August
Tickets: $20-$39
Bookings: 9533 8083 or boxoffice@redstitch.net

Passions run riot at Rippon Lea

By Kim Edwards

Emily Bronte’s classic story Wuthering Heights under the stars and in the historic gardens of the Rippon Lea Estate is a beguiling prospect, and this production is both stylish and polished.

With a script by Vince Foxall and direction by Greg Carroll, the torrid tale of Heathcliff and Cathy’s infamous relationship is unleashed among picnic hampers and lawn chairs, and as darkness fell, the night grew chill, and the wind ruffled the cast’s flowing skirts and shirts and the blankets over our knees, the atmosphere for the dark developments of the second act was delightfully apt.

Adapting Bronte’s sprawling problematic novel into a slim and sleek two-and-a-half hour performance is an impressive task, and there is much to admire here. The doubling of characters is well-wrought by a versatile cast who keep the complex genealogy remarkably comprehensible. The multiple narrators are adroitly managed, designer Glenn Elston has worked wonders with a limited lighting rig, and the beautiful sparsity in set and staging is highly effective.

Since the plot is remembered in popular culture as a determinedly romantic and fervent love story, the simmering sexual tension of the novel is understandably made explicit here: some characters are surprisingly handsome, relationships like that of Hindley and Francis and young Heathcliff and Cathy are slightly oddly romanticised and highly sexually charged, and much of the novel’s overt violence is discretely downplayed.

Less successful though for this production are some uneven accents, and the fever pitch at which all the characters are played. Although Bronte’s text is both epic and poetic, the Shakespearean-style proclaiming and frantic dialogue pace is sometimes disconcerting and deprives some of the minor characters of their normalcy and dignity and calmness that is needed to keep the plot’s passionate love triangle grounded.

Spencer Scholz finally remedies this with the quiet gravity of his older Edgar Linton, and his superb characterisation of the brutish but endearing Hareton, while Ciume Lochner works hard to capture the caprices, charms and exasperations of both Cathies. Michael Wahr becomes a pleasingly grim and bitter Heathcliff, and handles the transformation from outcast child to vengeful gentleman with skill.

Wuthering Heights is a very enjoyable evening’s entertainment, and if the imposing backdrop of the mansion is disappointingly unacknowledged in this production, there are torrents of drama and intrigue and an excess of love and hatred to keep an audience engaged. Dress warmly though, for the wuthering is highly realistic…

DATES: 17 February 2014 – 13 March 2014
WHEN: Monday to Thursday at 7pm (no show Monday 10 March 2014)
WHERE: Rippon Lea House and Gardens, 192 Hotham Street, Elsternwick
TICKETS: Adults $45, Conc $40, Groups 10+ $40, Children 5 -15yrs $25
BOOKINGS: www.shakespeareaustralia.com.au or Ticketmaster