David Williamson fulfils the double whammy at the Ensemble
this month by not only writing but also directing his latest work, ‘Cruise
Control’. The play is set on a cruise ship and centres around three couples:
one British, one American and one Australian and their relationships with each
other as well as their cultural differences. I know it sounds like the start of
a bad joke and Williamson’s play is like an elongated sketch with predictable
stereotypes but it is infinitely watchable even if it’s as obvious as you’d
expect from his body of work.
There are some genuinely funny lines. I think the lines referring to dentist
Sol Wasserman (Henry Szeps) and his novella ‘molarcaust’ or Silky Wasserman’s (Kate Fitzpatrick)
‘snake-slithering’ insults may have brought the house down. And
Williamson is not beyond poking fun at his own work. Novelist Richard Manton
(played by Felix Williamson, keeping it in the family) speaks of how
much critics enjoyed his early work and solidly damn his later writing and I
couldn’t help but think some of that must have been self-referential and
tongue-in-cheek. What Williamson does do well is build towards tension and then
know when to break it. Whether it be a moment of domestic violence or sexual
tension, Williamson has honed his craft and so regardless of the narrative or
character flaws, the play’s structure holds an audience’s engagement throughout
the course of the play.
Having said that, the last scene is completely redundant. I
won’t give it away but it does not take a rocket scientist to work out what has
happened- it is well signposted or implied in the narrative and so having to
show us what we’ve already guessed feels not only a wasted chance to end the
play cleanly but also suggests that we must be a bunch of idiots in the
audience to not have figured it out. And
there lies the contradiction of Williamson. Whilst he creates plays with
humour, he just doesn’t know when to stop. He needs a good editor or dramaturg
who can help him find the lost art of subtlety. Williamson turns up the dial on
each of his characters so that they lack credible belief. They are archetypes
trying to be three-dimensional and not quite making it. Take Aussie Bra-boy
Darren Brodie (Peter Phelps). Not only is the accent heightened and in his very
first scene he is refusing to wear a suit to dinner with his Ascham-educated wife
Imogen (Helen Dallimore) as he berates her for sleeping with his best friend but then Williamson tries to give him layers by having him use the occasional
phrase or word of a university educated man and it feels completely out of place. It’s
implausible and unnecessary. He’s a thug and a bully, even with heart, and the
idea of a self-educated master of the Oxford thesaurus is far-fetched. Why do we need it? Does it matter if he's a literary luddite? Richard
Manton is the consummate English villain, the Wasserman’s are the Jewish neurotic
parents and that leaves us with Fiona Manton (Michelle Doake) who is Richard’s
long-suffering wife, the damsel in distress, who can only be saved by the love
of another man. The dial has been turned up to extreme and so the play is
entertainingly superficial. It’s modern melodrama.
There are some solid performances on offer, particularly the
women of the play. Dallimore, Doake and Fitzpatrick are far more polished and
manage to deliver their characters with humour and emotion. Felix Williamson
has also mastered the archetypal villain and is thorough in his execution of
dastardly deeds. Szeps is still stumbling through the play- his lines don’t
quite feel down and the gaps in delivery mean timing and rhythm also falter, and
Phelps had lots of good moments but there felt like there were plenty of
unfinished actions- he pulls out of committing right to the end of an action
before the lights go down or the scene was finished. He needs to keep his
intensity all the way to the end. Kenneth Moraleda’s Charlie, the on-board Filipino
waiter, is merely there to contrast the opulent lifestyle we all take for
granted and we can judge ourselves or our culture from each character’s treatment
of him. He is functional more than fully-fleshed out. But Moraleda does what he
can with what he’s been given and he’s likable even if he’s ‘thin’ in role.
Marissa Dale-Johnson’s set does manage to encapsulate the
many locations using the smallest amount of space and she places us firmly on
the ship using every level at her disposal. I would have liked less movement as
a general rule as the play is trying to do too much with too little but
Dale-Johnson’s set at least makes it possible to fulfil all of Williamson’s
requirements.
I liked the play and looking around, so did the audience. I
think it’s been well-cast and it’s got lots of Williamson humour and wit to
enjoy. It’s superficial, archetypical and melodramatic but after all, you’re
going to see Williamson. Surely this is no surprise.
No comments:
Post a Comment