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Thursday 16 May 2013

GRIFFIN THEATRE, HOTHOUSE THEATRE & MERRIGONG THEATRE’S ‘THE BULL, THE MOON & THE CORONET OF STARS’ dissected by me

‘The Bull, The Moon and the Coronet of Stars’ by Van Badham is a great script. What a pleasure it must have been for director Lee Lewis to have it land on her desk. It has everything going for it to make it an incredibly successful production: sophisticated ideas that take classic Greek mythology and reinterpret these stories in a modern context, terrific characters whose relationships reflect the complexity of choices we make in falling in love and running from it when the pain hits, fast-paced witty dialogue that exposes our tactics, weaknesses and desires, clever use of technical elements, motifs and even cupcakes. Mmm…cupcakes.
So what could go wrong? What would stop me loving it? What choice could Lee Lewis make that would distance me from the multi-layered, engaging ideas and staging of this play? One word: casting. It’s a simple case of getting the casting so very wrong.
Let me be more explicit. Here’s the description of our female protagonist, Marion, as given by Van Badham, as spoken by the character Michael in the script and in performance, “He thought: short. Marion wore her light brown hair in plaits much like a younger woman, had glasses. Short and fat- and not his type.” Contrast this to the description of his wife; “His wife was a taller woman. Freckles and long legs and straight dark hair. Smaller breasts…thin and pretty.” We never see his wife. We only see the male characters played by Matt Zeremes and Silvia Colloca playing Marion. Colloca is a gorgeous Italian thin, modelesque-proportioned actress. See the dilemma??
Let me break it down with our physical criteria. Is Colloca short? No. Fat? No. Does she more fittingly describe the wife rather than Marion? Yes actually, she does. Would you ever look at her and not recognise straight away how beautiful she is? Are you blind? Does this matter? Yes. I think it does.
You see Marion’s beauty is in how it sneaks up on you and one day, bam, she seduces you with the blue dress, the curves, the humour, the cupcakes. When Michael says, “She’s nothing like his wife…she’s beautiful”, I have to say, ‘She’s exactly like your wife. She’s exactly how you described your wife. WTF?’
I mean, are there no 30+ women out there in the acting world who are curvy, short and not classically beautiful? Can you honestly tell me that Colloca was the best person for this role? That her video audition tape, sent from Milan (with her husband Richard Roxburgh reading in the male roles) was the most obvious casting choice? I cannot believe that is the case. I think Lee Lewis has been seduced by more than the blue dress. She’s been ‘Lysandered’. Puck has dropped the damn love potion in Lee Lewis’ eyes and she’s blind to how this will read to her audience. Colloca is a fine actress. She is just in no way right for this role.
If this was a play where your physical notion of self was irrelevant, then I could run with it. But Marion’s appearance is integral to the play. The men who fall in love with her dismiss her initially. She doesn’t even rate on the radar. I just don’t get it. I don’t need the blue dress or any of the described costumes or settings or props. I can easily imagine them. But I cannot see Colloca as anything but a slender and beautiful woman. Big mistake. What it means is that the tilt of the men, when they suddenly see Marion in a new light doesn’t happen. It was obvious from the start. Lewis can argue that they decided to abandon all the physical descriptions in order to liberate choices as much as she likes but in the end she's also abandoned a very powerful notion of being surprised by desire because she has put beauty front and centre.
Alright. I’ve made my point. Moving on to other elements of the play. Loved Zeremes. Great range of characters from beast, man, God. Enjoyed Anna Tregloan’s set and incorporation of the ‘blue’ in the carpet, the multi-purpose scaffolds that can be reconfigured but still expose our characters journey and narration, the disco balls that suddenly show us the coronet of stars when lit beautifully by Verity Hampson, Steve Francis’ creation of action, atmosphere and environment in his sound composition and design. The physical commitment of the play was impressive.
I know I’ve slapped Lewis across the face with the casting but she’s done a nice job on stage honouring Van Badham’s words into a performance text. And that’s what I love the most. The script. I couldn’t wait to read it as soon as I got home.
This play is good. Very good. But it could have been magnificent. Coulda, shoulda. Casting.

11 comments:

  1. I saw the production when it was was followed by a Q&A with director Lee Lewis, Matt Zeremes and Silvia Colloca. One audience member asked exactly the question which you took umbrage with and Lewis said how she deliberately went against the descriptions in the text when casting the play (especially in the case of Marion) because she wanted the audience to use their imagination, to project their own image of Marion onto the character. The same goes for not physically depicting the blue dress on stage - the blue dress for every audience member is going to be different so why specify it as one in particular. I can see why it might've annoyed you, but ultimately I don't think it matters. For a story based on the Greek myths, does it really matter who depicts what? In the end, I guess we're all legends, one way or another

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  2. It irked me enormously also.

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  3. You really are a very poor reviewer of Theatre in this city.
    You come across as a jealous sad and bitter loser rather than someone prepared to offer any meaningful critique. What does it matter who the actress is married to. Grapes! The point of Michael's inability to see the beauty of what is before him is surely that it is a manifestation of his own self-interest and ego. That's called establishing character. The playful conceit of casting a woman who resembles Michael's wife is called irony. Your review confirms the dictum that those who can, direct and those who can't, coulda shoulda woulda.

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    1. Best comment ever!

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    2. But if those were the intentions of the director and they didn't transfer to the audience (and I'm not the only one who questioned the casting from conversations I've had), then the effect is lost. Intentions count for nothing if they don't produce the desired audience effect and meaning. If it has to be explained in the Q&A, you've missed the point.
      But don't let that stop you throwing the old cliche from George Bernard Shaw in there. Here's one I quite like:
      "The longer I live, the more I realize that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time”

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  4. So, your review is basically punishing a talented actress because she happens to be beautiful? This is really very sad. By the same token, you should have been disturbed by Marion description of Mark, the sommelier : "small, knobby and with a crooked leg" clearly the opposite of Matt Zeremes appearance. What I see here is that, in your opinion a man has allowance to be talented and handsome and you embrace the casting of him in the role of a "not-handsome- at- all" man without question. But God forbid a talented actress, who also happens to be very beautiful should be praised too. Let me guess, you are a woman and a bit jelous of Ms Colloca's grace and beauty...

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    1. Cassie- I've given some thought to this to reflect on whether there might be some truth in what you say. I don't think it was an anti-woman perspective that made me write this review. I excused Zeremes' appearance because he played more than one character (even a woman at one brief stage) and the initial description of Michael seemed to fit Zeremes so I went with it. Plus, I think the play is about Marion & so for me, how she is portrayed and displayed is a lot more significant.

      Sure, it's easy to play the "she's bitter and jealous" card (and who wouldn't want to look like Silvia Colloca?) but I wasn't saying she was without talent, I was stating that the play lacked something because I felt she was miscast. I've spoken to other people since this review was published who felt the same as I did.

      Obviously that wasn't the case for you. But there is room for more than one opinion...

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  5. I absolutely loved the play and the two actors on stage were both wonderful to watch and had great chemistry. And the fact that they were both lovely looking made it the perfect rom-com. The script is great too. 5 out of 5 for me!

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  6. I can see why Sylvia's looks may be distracting to many. We are not used to exotic looking beauties on aussie stages and so I find it particularly refreshing that Lee Lewis cast Sylvia and Matt, clearly not your typical white Australian actors, in lead roles. Yes, they are both beautiful, but why should this be seen as a negative thing? Don't lovely looking people have their insecurities and get dumped too? Sylvia may look gorgeous, but she indeed offered the audience an insight in her fragile emotional world when her dreams of love are shattered.
    All opinions matter, but I wonder: had the character of Marian been described as a great beauty, and a less-than-gorgeous actress had been cast in that role, would anyone have complained about that? ... Do we, maybe, like to dislike beautiful looking people? Just a thought...

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    1. "We are not used to exotic looking beauties on aussie stages"?? Over the past 20 years, but I've seen PLENTY.

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  7. This review is only a sad, lonely woman's rant about how much she hates beautiful women. Lay off the cupcakes, darling. Put an ad on Craigslist. Get laid.

    It's a burden to be good-looking, you know.

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