The Mysteries: Genesis
THE MYSTERIES: GENESIS Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company, November 27-December 19, 2009; photos here by Brett Boardman
CATCHING up with a show well into its run (in this instance, just as it’s about to close) has advantages: if it was up to scratch in the first place it’s now well run in, the cast humming like an expensive auto engine; any adjustments or tweaks have been made and it’s probably as good as it’s ever going to be.
Happily, The Mysteries: Genesis is really good. It’s a new Australian work that’s exciting – in ideas, visual concepts and writing; and in the performances – by a group of actors we’ll be seeing a lot more of and who are already rawly thrilling.
The Residents is the STC in-house group that replaces the Actors Company, and this is its main stage debut. It’s an interesting contrast to the previous company-within-a-company because, aside from Brett Stiller, none have lengthy biogs or familiar faces; and they’re all youngsters. One hopes this means a different kind of work coming out of their time together – more experimental, hit-or-miss and genuinely bold.
Even before the play begins, the first novelty – a coup de theatre really – is Wharf 2 itself. It has been transformed into a classic two-tier black box with the main playing area on the lower level, surrounded by a gallery. Audience and actors occupy both spaces at various times and points and it’s the kind of flexibility that inspires both groups to be a little more daring in breaking the normal bounds. It tells you right away to expect the unexpected – and that you don’t have to sit around passively, but can see and be in the production as much or as little as you choose. It’s the space the STC has been lacking although it’s apparently temporary. For this show it works beautifully.
As it is, if The Mysteries: Genesis is the kind of production we can expect from The Residents, then hooray and about time too. Written by relative veterans Hilary Bell and Lally Katz, the work is in three distinct parts which all relate to the first book of the wondrous fairy stories know as The Bible. It opens with an account of the Fall – how God invented Adam, gave him Eve for company and told him on no account to eat from the tree of knowledge; how Eve was tempted by an evil serpent and succumbed (girls tend to be susceptible to serpents) and how she persuaded Adam (Cameron Goodall) to taste the apple and it’s been downhill ever since, particularly for penguins.
God and Lucifer are great mates who fall out and Lucifer’s revenge is as detailed above. It begins with a powerful image of white light falling from above that gradually extinguishes Lucifer’s own radiance and turns to black ash. (Left over from Wars of the Roses, perhaps, another aspect of the greening of the Wharf?) The lighting of the scene (Paul Jackson) and Brett Stiller’s literally naked performance as the fallen, emotionally agonised angel, are riveting to watch. God himself (Richard Pyros) is a very human kind of god in this incarnation; he is lonely, hopeful and finally, when thwarted, vengeful and unforgiving. Is he the God of the Old Testament or just an average bloke with an average bloke’s distaste for being disobeyed? His disdainful cruelty to Eve (Sophie Ross) suggests you could take your pick.
Directed by Matthew Lutton, the first act – Eden – vividly accomplishes in 45 minutes what the nuns were trying to drum into me at Loreto: the efficacy of fear and loathing and the impossibility of blind obedience. How could God be so mean? How could Lucifer be so beautiful and so bad? How could Adam be such a dork and Eve let him get away with it? This Eden, with its dazzling snow and Kahlua?-filled apple is at once repellent and beautiful.
Moving on to After the Fall – the ballad of Cain and Abel and all the begetting – in the second act, the first jolt for the faithful is getting their heads around Lucifer and Abel being portrayed by a provocatively powerful female (Alice Ansara). The choice conjures thoughts of inadequate fathers and their honour killings of feisty daughters, on the one hand and, on the other, how these biblical stories still resonate and command despite their patent absurdity. Andrew Upton directs the piece with a sense of fun and purpose in using the newly configured space and the wandering audience members as further trials and obstacles for the wretched God-bothered players. Their assurance suggests levels of trust in the material and motivation, and the true grit of youth, to make their adventures in the next couple of years something to anticipate.
The third act, The Ark directed by Tom Wright, features a Noah (Tahki Saul) who is either a bone idle neurotic or a Waco-type cult leader, perhaps both. Spread eagled at rest on an eight-deep tower of mattresses, he mutters his God-given instructions obsessively, “one cubit this, three cubits that, 15 cubits the other” and so on, to the intense irritation of Mrs Noah. What transpires is simultaneously familiar and spine-tingling as the rain begins to fall with growing intensity, becoming oppressive and frightening through a soundscape designed by Kingsley Reeve.
Production designer Alice Babidge has created a series of simple yet effective settings for each of the acts/plays; and that for the third part is also witty and amusingly spectacular: the pile of mattresses from which Noah and his acolytes survey the flood is reminiscent of a child’s imaginative alchemy with stored furniture, Hugh Hefner’s childish play bed and also the Princess and Pea fairy tale; although what turns out to be at the bottom of the pile is rather more than a few peas.
Altogether, despite a few sputters and judders and some uneven performances, The Mysteries: Genesis is wonderfully entertaining as spectacle and storytelling. I left the theatre exhilarated and hopeful for the future, but also wondering whether the Pell-pushers and Jensenites have been out of town during the run of the play. Can’t really understand otherwise why they haven’t been down at the Wharf, calling for the wrath of their God to smite this blasphemous mob for their hilariously tongue-in-cheek and ironic retelling of the foundation folk tales of Christianity.
