Tales From the Vienna Woods
Tales From the Vienna Woods, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, November 13-December 15, 2007; ph: 612 9250 1777 orHYPERLINK "http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com
Can't remember who said it or of which show, but sad to say it also applies to this production of Odon von Horvath's 1931 satire, Tales From the Vienna Woods: "You know you're in trouble when you leave the theatre humming the set."
Further signs of things being pretty crook down in old Vienna are when two bits of the program notes are the most mordantly funny and apposite elements of the evening. Here they are for your illumination ...
First bit: "Odon von Horvath was once walking through the Bavarian Alps when he discovered the skeleton of a long dead man with his knapsack still intact. Von Horvath opened the knapsack and found a postcard reading 'Having a wonderful time'. Asked by friends what he did with it, von Horvath replied 'I posted it'."
Second bit: "In June 1938 von Horvath was caught in a thunderstorm on the Champs Elysees. Having lived in fear of being struck by lightning his entire life, he decided to take shelter at the Theatre Marigny. Later, venturing back out onto the street, he was struck by a falling tree and killed instantly."
One might be forgiven for thinking the reason these two pen portraits of the playwright are included in the program is because they inform the production (as well as the reader). They appear to tell you, succinctly, an awful lot about the writer in life and in his mind and imagination.
You might conclude from them (but not the production) that von Horvath was probably morbidly humorous, delightfully shocking and an iconoclast; and a Hungarian Woody Allen when it comes to neuroses. What isn't apparent is that he was as prescient as more famous contemporaries (Brecht, Piscator) in understanding and fearing the rise of fascism in Germany. In Tales From the Vienna Woods, a play with music, he was raising the alarm in deceptively whimsical, faux-folksy style.
Von Horvath used the petty concerns of Vienna's petit bourgeoisie to thinly disguise his attack on the self righteous, well mannered, vicious mind-set which characterised the Nazi ascendancy. This is barely perceptible from director Jean-Pierre Mignon's tooth-achingly dull realisation of the piece.
Part of the problem, probably, is the new adaptation by Tom Wright. Laughs come not from genuine jokes or comedic situations but from crass contradictions of inappropriate ockerisms and cheap nonsense. When the only real guffaws of the night are provoked by someone chomping on the end of a suggestively wiggled salami, it's probably time to bring in the SS and have done with it all.
To stare down the terror of well-placed mistrust in the text, Alan John has been called upon to paper over the cracks with some lovely, witty pastiche Viennese music: waltzes, oompah and poignant folk melodies. It's not enough.
However, there is almost no terror nor darkness to be seen or felt, despite the looming misery of Nazism and the small-minded nastiness of most of the townsfolk. Almost the only time the stage and the personnel of the Actors Company comes to life is in the too-brief scenes when guest artist Paul Capsis takes centre-stage. He conjures one of the nastiest old grandmothers ever devised and then returns as a seedy-glam MC in a burlesque joint that echoes Cabaret and is none the worse for that.
As is so often the case with this company, Hayley McElhinney shines, this time as the young woman Marianne - abused, abandoned, derided and still hoping for love and some kind of life. John Gaden also brings convincing bluster to his role as the puffed up patriarch Leopold. However, as stated in the beginning, the best of the production are the set and costumes.
Andrew Hays and Kimm Kovac have managed to bring animation to the Drama Theatre stage with a sort of travelator, a curtain with a life of its own and a sumptuously tawdry, cerise facade of shop and house fronts - including a butcher's shop with a massive hanging carcass recycled (I reckon) from The Three Furies! Nigel Levings has lit the ingenious structure with mixtures of party lights, atmospheric washes and authentic looking "candle" and "lamp" light that hint at the theatrical spectacle which might have been.
Sadly, despite the all-too brief appearance of Paul Capsis as the spiteful old bat matriarch, there is little to convince a modern audience of von Horvath's significance in 20th century theatre history. Two young men in the row behind me spent much of the evening discussing PowerPoint presentations and marketing strategies, yet at the end of the performance they clapped heartily and told one another it was great. They would have tickled Odon von Horvath's caustic sense of humour no end.
