SYDNEY FESTIVAL/THE PIANIST
The Pianist Company B Belvoir St, January 16-27 (sold out but you ought to try for tickets if you want to go); Based on the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman; original concept by Mikhail Rudy, translated by Anthea Bell, directed by Rachel McDonald.
Concert pianist Mikhail Rudy read Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir The Pianist in 1999 and was deeply moved by the Polish pianist’s story of unlikely survival in the Warsaw ghetto of WW2. It rang personal bells for him because his own family in Russia had been persecuted during Stalin’s despotic reign.
The result of this interest was what he originally called his “Pianist project” and which is now in Sydney as The Pianist. If it seems familiar it’s probably because you saw or read about the 2002 Oscar-winning movie of the same title– also based on Szpilman’s story – that starred Adrien Brody and was directed by Roman Polanski.
If you did see the movie you will be at an advantage over those whose first exposure to the Szpilman story is through Rudy’s telling of it. He is a renowned concert pianist, but his skills as a playwright are limited. There is little drama and little exposition in the script so, unless you already know how Szpilman’s family and other Warsaw Jews were systematically persecuted by the SS from 1939 to 1941; and what daily life was like in the Ghetto – and indeed how Szpilman actually survived six years on his own until the Allies liberated the city – you won’t find out much from this 90 minute play with music.
The format is simple – stage empty but for a grand piano – and biased towards the music, which Rudy plays beautifully, but the story and its human drama suffer as a consequence. Sean Taylor has been enlisted to play the Szpilman speaking role in Sydney and it’s to his credit that it’s as luscent and occasionally moving as it is. He has little of substance to work with and makes more than the most of it.
The season was already sold out, according to the program, before it opened. There must be a lot of people who still like dollops of interlude music with their tragedy and don’t feel queasy about listening to tales of religious and political persecution of 70 years ago when much the same thing is being perpetuated by the descendants of the persecuted in Gaza today.
