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Sydney Festival - The Giacomo Variations
Review

Sydney Festival - The Giacomo Variations

January 21 2011

The Giacomo Variations, Sydney Opera House Concert Hall; January 19-21, 2011. Photos: the company in Sydney; thumb: Casanova himself

JOHN MALKOVICH is an acquired taste and I thought that after being underwhelmed by him in movie after movie, it would be good to see the renowned Steppenwolf alumnus on stage. Maybe then I’d get it.

After sitting through the first half of the Giacomo Variations I’m sad to report that John Malkovich is a taste I will probably never acquire. Mercifully, an interval has been built into this silly piece and it gave the opportunity to bump into friends who said, “Ye gods, let’s get out of here and go and have a drink.” And, as the Bennelong bar is a only few steps from the Concert Hall, it seemed the humane and reasonable thing to take those few steps and order a bottle of Killikanoon Grenache; and then another.

Walking out at half time is something I’ve done only three times in the past 20-odd years. In other words, it’s not something to be undertaken lightly. Unfortunately, The Giacomo Variations quickly revealed itself to be a load of such self-indulgent, ill-thought out nonsense, that continuing to sit in the concert hall was embarrassing.

It was described in the program as a chamber opera play but it’s impossible see how it could please opera and music lovers, or theatre goers. The singing was awful, the amplified voices and sound engineering were grim and often inaudible; the acting was more excruciating than bad toothache and, after that, there’s little to be said.

Was it ever a good idea? Maybe: take the memoirs of fabled libertine Casanova and interweave them with Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte in ways suggesting or extrapolating on a connection with or reference to librettist Lorenzo da Ponte and his pal Casanova.

Sydney Festival - The Giacomo Variations

The resulting mishmash is breathtakingly lame and uninteresting with international cult superstar Malkovich at its barely beating heart. It is bewildering that he is such a drawcard: his delivery is rarely less than peculiar with punctuation reminiscent of George W Bush, who stopped at the end of each auto-cue line no matter whether it was the end of a sentence or somewhere in the middle. Malkovich also speaks his lines in the toneless fashion usually associated with a profoundly deaf person and, while fascinating – as per rabbit trapped in the headlights – it does make it hard to pay attention to what he’s saying, as the manner of it is so weird.

Malkovich’s co-conspirators are actress Ingeborga Dapkunaite, soprano Martene Grimson, baritone Andrei Bondarenko and the chamber grouping of the Sydney Symphony. All to no avail – not that it’s their fault. The blame must surely be laid at the feet of Michael Sturminger writer, director and perpetrator.

Nevertheless, given the confession above that the second half was not endured, please check the brothers McCallum, Peter in the Sydney Morning Herald and John, in The Australian – and you’ll see that in their different ways and approaches, they both come to much the same conclusion. Profoundly disappointing.

 

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