Ruben Guthrie II
Ruben Guthrie Belvoir St Theatre, May 28-July 5 2009; www.belvoir.com.au
Brendan Cowell and his collaborators scored a big and deserved hit with this play when it first appeared at Downstairs Belvoir last year. According to the StageNoise review of the time it was pretty much the best thing Cowell had written to that point and probably the best performance by Toby Schmitz; as well as Wayne Blair’s best job of direction too.
One of Belvoir’s most recent innovations has been to take a new work from the Downstairs theatre and develop it further, re-cast it and present it the following year in the Upstairs theatre. Last year Kate Mulvany’s The Seed got the treatment and this year Cowell’s play has climbed the stairs. So now we have what is part Ruben Redux and part Ruben the Remix.
The first production sold out quickly and many were disappointed. This time it’s worth seeing whether you saw it first time around or not, because it is different and better. How so? That’s trickier to pin down. It’s always amazed me how some people can say, with total conviction, that such-and-such is better than or not as good as the production of two or ten years ago. Is it photographic recall or just simple conviction?
Theatre is alive and ephemeral – both its thrill and its sadness. Memory of productions past is something like an Impressionist painter’s grasp of a fleeting moment in time and light. Often, when questioned about why a production was particularly good or not, a person will present an impressionistic moment, or series of moments, to explain the opinion.
Re-reading what I wrote last year, I still agree with me: it was a wonderful entertainment, with heart and soul – and guts. And Schmitz was spectacular. This time, my impression is of a play that has matured and acquired even more heart and depth. And Schmitz’s performance is also more mature and heartfelt; the comedy is rich but there is even less tendency to cartoon and caricature than before.
Some of that might be to do with the character of Ruben’s mother (Toni Scanlan). I don’t recall her being such a manipulative enabler of his alcoholism; and she now adds a sense of sincere, loving gravitas that makes his struggle even more shocking – and plausible.
Roy Billings plays his ad agency boss and, fresh from Underbelly and the world of ruthless crims, he is also a dark presence in Ruben’s life. Other members of the cast were in the first production and are fine: but it is Schmitz’s show. And Cowell’s work on the play in the interim seems to have tightened the focus and heightened the laughter and pain.
In 2008 members of the audience giggled and looked sheepish as they stumbled from the Downstairs theatre across the foyer to the bar and a glass of wine. This time, there are several flights of stairs to negotiate first and many people were hanging on to the rails on the way down, but still heading at top speed for the bar with the words of Ruben’s Czech girlfriend Zoya ringing in their ears: “Australia is an alcoholic country.” True, but Cowell/Schmitz make a good Zinfandel sound utterly irresistible. And there’s the rub.
