Review: The Judas Kiss

The Judas Kiss
Mockingbird Theatre
15 March 2014
Theatre Works
to 22 March
theatreworks.org.au

Mockingbird Theatre continue to give us memorable text-on-stage productions of the plays that we wish we'd seen the original productions of, and give performers the chance to play roles that they've dreamed of. At Theatre Works this week, they're giving us The Judas Kiss: David Hare's imagining of the behind-doors conversations in a hotel before Wilde's arrest for gross indecency and in Naples after his release from gaol and not long before his impoverised death.

The first production, 1998, Sir David (The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, The Hours) described as "deeply unsatisfactory" in a 2013 interview in The Guardian. He said it went "off kilter " as he "wanted to smash every cliche about Wilde" and by casting "Ireland's most famous heterosexual as Wilde, we were possibly trying to sail away from stereotypes a little too far". Liam Neeson was Wilde and Tom Hollander was his lover and downfall Bosie, Sir Alfred Douglas.  No matter how off kilter, I wish I'd seen it.

In 1999, Belvoir toured Neil Armfield's production in Australia (with Billie Brown as Wilde) and Armfield went to London in 2012 to direct a much more successful UK version (with Rupert Everett as Wilde).

Mockingbird's founder, Chris Baldock, is our Wilde. At first, I wanted him to stop being an idealised impression of witty Wilde – to be more off kilter – but as Wilde let his public persona drop behind the closed hotel doors, Baldock's performance developed into something far more complex and fascinating. It's clearly a role he's always wanted to play and his years of preparation are felt on the stage.

The rest of the cast (Nigel Langley, Oliver Coleman, Zak Zavod, Laurent Murtagh, Soren Jensen and Nores Cerfeda) all bring a personal understanding and empathy to their characters, which makes for heartfelt – if, at times, uneven – performances. And all occasionally stumble over the naturalism problem of how to stand and listen or disappear into the background.

Also not helping is a set that looks like a suburban amateur company's period-drama set used since the 1950s and finally left out for hard rubbish. Resources, demands of the text and the spacious Theatre Works stage are all understood, but it's a distraction and undermines the quality of the rest of the production.

Still, director Jason Cavanagh, with assistant director Celeste Cody, bring a world that's true to the (long) text while creating a curiosity about Wilde and a wish that he'd made different choices. I'd like to have seen more of the love between Wilde and Bosie as, in this play, it's this love (destructive, obsessive or unseen by anyone but the two of them) that governs all of Wilde's decisions and it would help to support his choices rather than wanting him to slap Bosie and run off with Robbie. And given the play opens with a nude and lusty boy-girl sex scene, there's an expectation that sex is going to play a much bigger part in the story.

The Judas Kiss has its off kilter moments, but they don't knock it too far off balance and, as the chances of seeing this play in the near future are slim, it's well worth seeing.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Tuesday

Tuesday
MKA
9 June
MKA Pop Up Theatre, North Melbourne
to 23 June
mka.org.au

I saw a lot of theatre last week, but there was only one show that left me excited about theatre. And there's still time to see it!

What haven't I said about MKA? They consistently show new writing that makes me fall in love with plays all over again and they make it with creators I've rarely heard of, but will make sure that I see again.

Tuesday is an experience. This season's pop-up space is in North Melbourne. There was the Salvo's office in Windsor and the old Steiner School in Abbotsfod, and now it's an old North Melbourne warehouse; if you get lost, look for the people with LED lights. I hope they never find a permanent home because it's so much more fun creating theatre in places where theatre was never meant to be.

Their Winter 2012 season opens with four people telling us about their trip to the supermarket on Tuesday special price day. Never say that you need an complex premise to write an incredible story. There's a man (Zak Zavod) who sees a patch of blue on his ceiling and buys a tracksuit at the supermarket because he's never done so before, a woman (Jenny Seedsman) who buys peaches in jars for her husband who doesn't like peaches and knows how she'd act if she were anyone else, the supermarket manager (James Deeth) who redesigns an employee of the month certificate and tells us that his wife feels like a complete stranger when he's inside her, and a schoolgirl (Brigid Gallacher, The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of  Romeo and Juliet) who waves at security cameras to get any attention and makes us wish we were brave enough to shake the Coke bottles on the shelf.

Louris Van De Geer's script was developed by MKA through MKA@MTC and through Theatre Works. This kind of development support by funded companies is what's going to help create more incredible scripts by emerging writers.

And Tuesday is an incredible script. With images like swinging signs in an aisle, missing spice packets and a pyramid of tuna tins with an inflatable fish, she creates a vivid world that's beautiful in its suburban dullness. Its four monologues build the story without directly interacting. All they do is tell us about their trip to the shops, but its painful joy comes from a subtext that tells us so much about these compulsive and broken people. This builds an almost unbearable tension because we know something has to happen, but we have no idea what or when or who. When it does, it forces a re-read of the whole night and a search to remember the clues.

But great scripts need equally great creatives. There's a design (Eugyeene Teh) that makes old warehouse offices feel like they were built for this play; lighting (Rob Sowinski) that builds as much tension as the script; direction (Brienna Macnish) that captures the tone and pace of the script perfectly, possibly better than the writer could imagine; and a cast who make it feel like it was written just for them.

I think this is the most exciting piece of theatre I've seen this year. This company create with the kind of passion that doesn't listen to naysayers and cynics.  They believe that theatre is art and that art should wake up our brains and our hearts.  Or it could just be because I really like going to the supermarket.

Photo by Sarah Walker

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com