In Briefs (On Broadway)

Photos : Pat Bromilow Downing

Photos : Pat Bromilow Downing


Marcel Meyer has made an encouraging debut with his first staged musical In Briefs, a queer little musical. After recent musicals at this venue, patrons disappointed by Bangbroek Mountain, sent fleeing by the abysmal Bachelor Girl, and now understandably sceptical, really ought to give In Briefs a chance.

The music is firmly in the Broadway mould, but particularly refreshing is it’s willingness to attempt more complex musical arrangements clearly under the inspirational influence of Stephen Sondheim – not only in subject matter but also in style. His groundbreaking Company immediately springs to mind. In Briefs too is about ambiguous domestic relationships and finding love in the inner city. At times, the individuals’ stories sung by their characters in separate locations are woven together in single melodies. Most characteristically, it is short on fantasy and concentrated in reflecting realistically a particular slice of gay society.

It is a strength of the work that Meyer is writing passionately about what he knows best. In Briefs focuses on the sexual tensions surrounding three similar, thirty-something, professional young men and two twenty-year-olds in search of fulfilment. If it were not a ghetto musical, the abundance of prime flesh on display would appear to be gratuitous titillation, but Meyer is concerned with exposing his characters in all their vulnerability. Theatre is a community activity, and in this generally non-reflective social milieu, In Briefs is of great benefit, not least because Meyer depicts those lives around him in a familiar yet aesthetic way.

Jason Ralph leads the cast, and with his show-stopping numbers Matt’s Dilemma and My One True Love is the obvious star amongst the young cast. Director Fred Abrahamse has ensured a high standard of professional production values from the set design and lighting right down to the theatre programme.

September 29, 2007 | Tags: , , , | Comments Closed

Romeo and Juliet (Maynardville Open Air Theatre)

Scott Sparrow (Paris) brings Theresa Iglich (Matriarch) on stage

This year’s Maynardville production is an inexcusably mediocre effort. Romeo and Juliet is the easiest of all Shakespeare’s plays to stage and to act. The venue is stunning; the budget is sufficient; and last year, Twelfth Night proved that we may not have entirely lost the alphabet to do Shakespeare.

Director Fred Abrahamse isn’t even guilty of directorial intemperance – the usual culprit that scuttles Maynardville. It is neither fish (straightforward and competent) nor flesh (a contemporary reading for which this play begs), nor good red herring (some audacious interpretation). Unusually for Abrahamse, this time around he is thoughtless and unimaginative. A brief respite, but rather tatty, out of place scene depicts Mexico’s Día de los Muertos. Otherwise, presumably we are in some fantasy version of Verona. At three hours, with almost no cuts, it becomes interminable.

The actors shout their way through the script as if unaware they have microphones (even though these are often faulty) – and several voices cracked on opening night. There seems to be a misconception among the cast that saying lines terribly fast makes it sound like they mean what they’re saying. They don’t, and it murders the poetry. This includes over emphasising the rhymes in a singsong manner after neglecting every other inflection. Creaky Shakespearean devices, like asides are kept, when the lines work as well naturally.

Without directorial vision, it is up to the players. But the casting is careless. While Abrahamse is at pains to make a homosexual subtext work between Mercutio (Jason Ralph) and Romeo, he is unable to manufacture any chemistry between the unsuited pair of Rolanda Marais (Juliet) and Marcel Meyer (Romeo). Having Ralph return as the apothecary is a nice touch. But Mercutio’s sexual assault on the old Nurse is inconsistent with the take on the character and distastefully portrayed. It is also shockingly glib given our society’s violence against women. It shows up the failure of this production to make any kind of interesting comment.

Meyer made a compelling Rosencrantz in Suzman’s Hamlet, but as Romeo he is out of his depth and without support. Theresa Iglich (Matriarch) and Scott Sparrow (Paris) give the best-judged performances, except when the latter falls in to undignified wailing at Juliet’s corpse. Meyer would have worked as Paris (and perhaps visa versa). Jason Ralph (Mercutio), Guy de Lancey (Capulet) and Anthea Thompson (Nurse) are capable and do their best to keep the first half together. Matthew Wild (Friar Laurence) is too busy trying to sound beneficent and avuncular to give his words any emotion.

Unfortunately, as the play is conceived, the last acts belong to Juliet. Rolanda Marais flips from spoilt brat to fishwife – the last thing you want from a Juliet. Her voice is hard to take – much like the lark Juliet describes: “sings so out of tune, / Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps”. Curiously, her only convincing moment, and she plays it well, is when she dissembles to her father about going to confession (Act IV Scene ii). Marais would have done well to pretend more and be less carried away by her method acting.

Lacking nuance, finesse, and beauty, this is a dull relapse into Maynardville’s chequered past.

January 20, 2007 | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Closed

Exits and Entrances

Exits and Entrances

I commented in a recent review of the Baxter’s production of Fugard’s Exits and Entrances about the changing style of acting – a pivotal theme to Fugard’s play – about how theatre styles outdate. We’ve moved away from “theatricality” in the sense of foregrounded technique – the magnified gestures, the trick of the voice – the kind of extravagant acting that earned Laurence Olivier’s Othello the nickname Hello Golly!
And that was my problem with Sean Taylor – brilliant in the part of Huguenet performing on and off stage as Huguenet – but not making the transition when he is required to be the man Huguenet contemplating suicide on the Baxter stage as a character in a 21st century Fugard play. Taylor is a 1980s actor. There is still much nostalgia for this style of acting in Cape Town – it fits with a large part of the audience’s preconception or idea of what good acting is. The shadow of the old style also stalks Goodman – though he is more convincing, whereas Taylor is compelling, but not believable. However, he may work better now that Exits and Entrances has moved to the Concert Hall, though I believe the Studio was the right space for this piece.

The shift is partly the influence of film and television, but it has also been the nature of the material, the characters and the style of writing, in the same way that politicians now no longer give great rhetorical speeches (the last was probably Kennedy), except perhaps Castro!

There is one twist in this tale of styles – and that is Steven Berkoff. His one man performances are all about foregrounded technique and exaggerated gesture. But it works brilliantly, because he creates his own alphabet and teaches it to the audience during the course of his performance. It is an integral and wholly consistent part of the experience.

August 14, 2005 | Tags: , , | Comments Closed