Gethsemane
Gethsemane Company B at Belvoir St; September 2-October 18, 2009; www.belvoir.com.au. Images by Heidrun Lohr.
DAVID HARE’S Gethsemane could be seen as a contemporary take on the satirical social comedies of the Restoration. In its snappy, aphoristic comedy and acidic portrayals of characters that closely resemble players in the rump period of the Blair government, Gethsemane echoes the prevailing preference under Charles II for anything goes – in bed and on stage. While the pointedly exaggerated comic characterisations (the Minister and her amanuensis in particular) have a definite whiff of the classic comedy of manners. There’s more to it than that, but.
Yet there is an altogether darker and angrier edge to David Hare’s mood in recent years. His disillusion with Tony Blair and “New Labour” (no longer “new” since Gordon Brown moved into 10 Downing Street, you may have noticed) is profound and, after The Absence of War and Stuff Happens, is clearly irreversible. He’s also said himself that this play is something of an obituary for the sullied promise and optimism of the Blair years.
This is possibly why the comedy is less than “dazzling” – as spruiked – or perhaps it is that the uneasy mix of reality-politico drama and high comedy isn’t quite gelling, yet if ever, in this handsome production directed by Neil Armfield and designed by Brian Thomson.
After years of collaboration, Armfield is good mates with Hare these days,and there is a feeling of a rather reverent approach to the great man’s work when a downright irreverent, more robust style might have worked better. A bubbling, brittle, champagne exuberance in the playing may have heightened rather than dampened the poignancy and despair which lie at the heart of Gethsemane. As it is, there are fabulously Sheridanesque portrayals of vivid colour, wicked comic timing and hilariously arch knowingness from Sarah Peirse as the Tessa-Jowell-alike Home Secretary Meredith Guest, Paula Arundell as her hawkeyed advisor Monique Toussaint, Hugh Keays-Byrne as Party fund-raiser and dodgy prime ministerial eminence gris Otto Fallon, and Charlie Garber as Otto’s erm, snippy major domo and personal assistant.
The rest of the cast, contribute entirely solid and credible characterisations: as the PM – Rhys Muldoon (who played Tony Blair in Stuff Happens!) – Emily Barclay as Meredith’s wayward teenage daugher Suzette; Andy Rodoreda and Claire Jones as Mike and Lori Drysdale, the Hare moral and ethical mouthpieces; and Dan Wyllie as Fleet Street reptile Geoff Benzine. Yet the disjuncture between the relatively grounded realism of these portrayals and the quartet described above is an odd one.
At the same time, Gethsemane (the dark night of the soul – first locate your soul) is richly entertaining. In its asides on sexual peccadilloes, its focus on public and private corruption and the overwhelming disenchantment felt by so many with so few – unfortunately powerful – people, it elicited much despairing laughter and snorts of derision from the audience. It’s partly fortuitous timing but also a symptom of the current deathly malaise that we are at once enthralled and appalled by such a vivid reminder of what passes for government in NSW at the moment.
Bob Carr, was in the opening night audience and looking quite merry, which suggests his hide is a lot thicker than John Della Bosca’s – for whom I never thought I’d feel sympathy, but do right now. There’s a tragi-comedy waiting to be written if ever there was one: Night of the Iguana meets Attack of the 50ft Women.
Meanwhile, back at Gethsemane. As mentioned above, the production is well served by Brian Thomson’s minimal and elegant set. It’s modishly brutalist, epitomizing the concept of “edgy living” in bare concrete with an elegant underlit glass table and pale leather-covered bench that morph into a variety of locations. And these work in close conjunction with Damien Cooper’s multi-layered lighting design and Jennifer Irwin’s unusually defining costume choices. While Alan John punctuates and enhances the action with one of his best scores/soundscapes of recent times.
All in all, Gethsemane is an up market, intelligent entertainment that ticks all the right boxes for its target audience: relevant, political, passionate, unblinking, funny, curmudgeonly and, dare it be said, comfortingly familiar. And the work of Paula Arundell, Charlie Garber, Sarah Peirse and out-of-retirement and splendid Hugh Keays-Byrne is especially worth the ticket price.
