Review: Solomon and Marion

Solomon and Marion
Melbourne Theatre Company
12 June 2013
Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio
to 20 July
mtc.com.au

In Cape Town in 2006, actor Brett Goldin and designer Richard Bloom left a party and never got home. They were found naked, except for their socks, near a freeway; they had been robbed and shot through the head.  Goldin was playing Guildenstern in a production of Hamlet  that was about to fly to Stratford to open the Complete Works Festival. Writer Lara Foot worked with the same theatre company and Solomon and Marion is the result of her trying to understand the incomprehensible – and incomprehensibly accepted – violence in her country.

It's a beautiful play. Its uneasy undertone of violence and mistrust creates tension, but it's gentle and loving and finds hope in the endless grief.

Marion (Gillian Jones) is an old white South African who lives alone in the Eastern Cape. She doesn't want to move to Australia to be with her daughter and grandchildren and leaves her door and windows open, despite the constant threat of violence. Solomon (Pacharo Mzembe) is the black grandchild of Marion's former maid and he turns up one day saying that he's been sent to see her.

In a world that's dominated by loss, poverty and guilt, Foot explores two people who cannot escape the violence and are secretly scared of their own complicity.

In a production where design (Richard Roberts, set and costume; Rachel Burke, lighting; David Bridie, music), performance and script work like one, director Pamela Rabe lets this very place-specific story resonate way beyond its South African borders. As its secrets are dug up and assumptions buried in the hilly floor of sand, Marion and Solomon try to understand why the other is in their life, each wanting the other gone, but terrified that they might leave.

But the night belongs to Mzembe and Jones.  I first saw Jones in the early 80s in Jim Sharman's Midsummer Night's Dream; when Mzembe wasn't even born. You don't forget the great actors when you see them, and on TV and stage, Jones is an actor who leaves ego aside and creates characters who live. Mzembe graduated from NIDA in 2007 and lets us see every nuance of Solomon's complex relationship with Marion, which begins with a confused mix of resentment, respect and pity.

This story had its roots in the kind of violence and loss that creates hatred, but it leaves the hate behind to reveal the broken hearts of two people whose have to live with its consequences.

Photo by Jeff Busby

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

David Bridie and George Telek

David Bridie and George Telek
22 November 2008
The Speigeltent

David Bridie and long-time collaborator George Telek made the Speigeltent dance at their Australasian World Music Expo performance. There wasn’t actually room for the audience to dance, but the weather made the velvet canopy undulate for us, as the mirrors and coloured glass kept us safe and dry from the unseasonal Melbourne storm.

David Bridie founded my second favourite 80s band, Not Drowning Waving, and (I think) favourite 90s bands My Friend the Chocolate Cake. With film soundtracks and solo projects, he’s continued to produce an ongoing supply of his evocative and haunting sounds, smooth voice and personal lyrics.

Telek’s web site describes Telek as “a band, a man and, in some parts of the world, a legend”. With legions of fans in Papua New Guinea, he has been at the forefront of the PNG music scene since the 70s.

David met George in 1986 when he was holidaying in Rabaul, PNG, and two years later Not Drowning Waving recorded Tabaran with Telek and other musicians from the area. David Byrne declared it his favourite album of the year and Peter Gabriel was so impressed that Telek performed at WOMAD festivals and has since recorded on Gabriel’s Real World label.

Journalist Jon Casimir describes Tabaran as, “Neither exploitative nor the slightest bit anthropological ... a genuine, joyous integration of cultures, a landmark album which sounds as startlingly right today as it did in 1990.”

I bought my copy after being gobsmacked by Telek and Not Drowning Waving one hot night in the gardens at WOMADelaide. The unique fusion of traditional with contemporary sounds didn’t diminish or demean either, and it was such a joy to hear the same music, so many years later, and realise that it’s still so original and powerful.

David also pleased the assembled fans with a selection from his most recent album Succumb and favourites “Dive” and “Salt” from Act of Free Choice. He performs with a sometimes disconcerting distance from his audience, but his passion for his music is absolute and addictive.

George, David and their band sent us back into the rain with “Melbourne City”, the first song George wrote when he came to Melbourne in the late 80s – and David insists that there are still beetle nut stains on the footpath alongside Elwood beach from that visit.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.