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Much Ado About
Murder
Presented by:
The 1812
Theatre
Venue:
3 Rose Street,
Upper Ferntree Gully
Reviewer:
K.E. Weber
Date Reviewed:
Friday 6th
November 2009
Prolific American playwright Pat Cook has penned 125 works to date
each falling under one of approximately 12 of Cook's self
appointed categories ranging from Thanksgiving Plays to Western
Comedies, Soap Operas to Patriotic Themes.
Much Ado About Murder
is a Whodunit Mystery which relies heavily on a gimmick or two. It
is described as a two act audience-participation murder mystery.
The murder is revealed to the audience before the characters of the
play know about it by a wackily macabre, unashamedly flirtatious and
slightly mad master of ceremonies who, in this production, is known
as Ms. (and not Mr.) Hawker (Anne B Smith). Reminiscent of old
style melodrama, each character is introduced and assigned their
role as the audience is further instructed by Ms. Hawker about the
events surrounding the murder. Suspects and red herrings abound
before intermission at which time the audience is asked to
scrutinize the scene of the crime. Adding to the audience
participation gimmick, the playwright enables the audience to
question the suspects near the end of Act 11. I hope you are
beginning to understand, Dear Reader, that this ain't Edgar Allan
Poe!
Also, the tritely tenuous Shakespeare connection goes
somewhat further than the obvious play on words of the
Bard's romantic comedy. The play is set in the living room of our
unseen victim Carlton Larraby who has invited some family and
friends to a Halloween party dressed as characters from
Shakespeare. The theme is kept alive with some Shakespearean
references sprinkled in amongst the all too thin dialogue - Twelfth
Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream to name a few - a character is
introduced as a classical actress who knows her Shakespeare inside
out and there is the unabashed handling of a skull - "Alas, poor
Yorick!'
As an aficionado of all things mystery fiction or detective fiction
along with their sub genres of noir
fiction, crime fiction, the whodunit, legal thriller, courtroom
drama, locked room mystery and hardboiled crime fiction I entered
the world of the play with high hopes and great expectations (thank
you Dickens!) Upon its opening, I gazed with great satisfaction upon
the seemingly lifeless figure sprawled carelessly across the sofa
in, what appears to be, a well to do living space and think - Ah,
the game is afoot! I am convinced that I will enjoy this 120
minutes of juicy murder wherein I would employ my little grey cells
to reveal the cat among the pigeons as it were...but ,sadly, I do
neither.
When the play begins, the bored guests have arrived and wait
impatiently for their host to show up, unaware that he has been
gruesomely bludgeoned to death in his study. I am frankly also
bored. The reason for this? On the whole, most of the actors do
very little to grab me by the throat and demand my attention. The
heightened energy of the stage (the theatricality if you will) is a flatline.
It is almost as if the director (Zina Carman) has instructed her
actors to play it as naturally as possible for fear of perhaps
overacting the melodrama present in this rather perfunctory work.
Could be sound strategy except that acting naturally is death for an
actor. The acting never rises above life; does not pulse with life;
does not reach beyond the stage and does not entrance.
I know this piece is an end of year offering which, on the whole,
have become light and fluffy blancmange affairs and perhaps these
are the plays that an audience wants at this time of year however my
hope remains that the craft of acting does not become
the sacrificial lamb in this cause. Early in the season I know but
there were also some line fumbles, some problems with
voice projection, some masking issues, some pace issues and, I
believe, an accident with a lamp that was not scripted.
Contrary to the performance issues alluded to above, much effort,
care and thought was clearly given to the creation of the
sophisticated and really quite lovely setting of Larraby's living
room. A winding staircase up stage right, a window seat down stage
left leading a set of almost full length windows which are used to
great effect for the rain display. A fire place centre and some
tasteful furnishings comprise the acting space. There is also a
raised platform down stage right on which sits a plush chair and an
easel which holds title cards. This should depict the interview
area wherein suspects are presumably being interrogated by the
police. The second set depicting Larrbay's study (the crime scene)
is situated in a nearby theatrette and is a man's domain heavy with
wood - bookcases, desk - and other paraphernalia befitting this
environment. It is also littered with clues and, I must say, I am
guilty of perusing these with a great deal of eagerness until I am
finally asked to move on by the 'police man' watching over
proceedings. Sound and lighting effects comprise of the expected -
sudden blackouts, lightning, thunder, rain, screams, weird sounds,
whistling kettle, doorbell, mood music and these were aptly handled.
It is a shame that the attention to detail offered to the set did
not generally seem to be present in the acting. Anne B Smith as Ms.
Hawker did bring quite a bit of energy to the role. She seemed to
be enjoying herself, took control of the stage, was acting with her
body as well as her voice and allowed herself to play.
Unfortunately, some of her facial expressions, particularly when
changing the seemingly never ending titles in the easel, became very
predictable and therefore lost their punch. This was not necessarily
a fault of the actor though - more on this later.
Jolene (Charlie Allan) is described as the ingénue and spent some of
her time finding dead people and some of her time clinging onto her
love interest Steven (Richard Foster). Charlie has a nice stage
presence and is quite confident there but I felt her
overall performance could have been so much more interesting had she
given her Jolene a little more spontaneity as opposed to the
rehearsed result I witnessed. Yes she was supposed to be emotional
but it was too stagy and empty for mine. Kerry Parkinson as Blanche
seemed incredibly timid - almost to the point of making apologies
for being on the stage. I'm not sure if this was Kerry or Blanche
but the overall impression that I was left with was that here was an
actor who was not happy about being where she was. Her delivery was
often very quiet and really more could have been made with her
dialogue with Kimberley. Where was her attitude - her vanity?
Richard Foster was, in my view, so natural I almost missed him.
Unfortunately, I didn't see a lot of life in this character and I so
wanted to. He was a servant but also sophisticated - was this
explored because I didn't see it. His dialogue was delivered as
though he were having a casual conversation in life (the stage is
NOT life) therefore his character became very bland and
uninteresting. As Steven has some vital contributions to make
towards the final reveal this blandness did nothing to assist the
build to this. Michael Barrack as one of the twins Leslie missed
his character's poised personality and his sarcastic witticisms
became lost because there was simply no attitude behind them. It
was almost as if lines were learned but intent was not. Actors
cannot act without their intent! Terry Koira as the other twin
Wesley had, in my view, the best part in the play but failed to find
the reality of his character's nervous disposition. Much hand
wringing and the like do convey some behaviour but to make behaviour
real the actor must believe it - I didn't believe that Terry
believed this enough for his character - a shame because I did see
fledgling glimmers. Patricia McCracken brings much experience to
the stage and as Lillian did do justice to the grand dame
stereotype. She allowed her body to deliver what the lines could
not and this was good but perhaps, as with some of the other actors
on this night, I felt that heightened energy to be lacking. Peter
Frid was at times successful in delivering a rather priggish Malcolm
but there were times when I felt the approach a little too didactic
and unbelievable. Alicia Kidd intellectually understood the
apparent businesslike attitude of Kimberley but I felt that this
knowledge never really made it into her body. Here, again, I felt
that lines were the thing and behaviour was secondary. The
performance, for me, never quite convinced.
The pace of the play was also an issue for me particularly in the
many moments when the characters were taken out of the main set and
placed into the interview area down stage right. This was always
preceded by Ms. hawker who would change the titles on the easel to
disclose the name of the witness. As touched on earlier, Ms
Hawker's facial expressions and behaviour, while humorous the first
time, became tedious with the many repetitions. I really did feel
that this rigmarole of lights down while actor walks to position
down stage right, takes seat, we wait for Ms. Hawker to do her
thing, another slight lighting adjustment before actor launches into
his interrogation was unnecessary and distracting. Unfortunately,
this did slow things down considerably and I wish that another more
creative way had been found to accommodate this requirement. I also
wish that actors participating in this monologue style interview had
made some decision during the rehearsal process re. what their
character is saying; who they are saying it to and why they are
saying it. Again, I felt very strongly that so many opportunities
re. character development were missed in these monologues. It was
all about lines and honestly if that's all it is then the audience
may as well be given a copy of the script to read. Having said all
that, I do understand that these are stock characters and it is all
supposed to be a bit of fun but regardless of the genre the actor's
craft should be the inspiration but on this occasion, for me, it was
not.
I also found the decision to rework the play into an Australian
setting all a little trite and yes, hearing familiar suburbs
mentioned is always a forerunner of either a groan or grin but why
is it that directors are not content with the material as
presented. I did notice that the reference to oil and oil fields
was still present and as the playwright is a Texan it comes as no
surprise but Australian oil fields?? Will mention that there was a
requirement to rewrite the daylight saving reference and this was
done.
The 1812 theatre is a very classy establishment and no-one is more
welcoming or generous in their front of house area than this
company. I have seen some amazing productions in this space and I
look forward to their offerings in the coming year. While I do
acknowledge all of the work that has gone into the making of
Much Ado
About Murder,
for me, this was not one of those amazing productions.
Much Ado About Murder
runs till December 5 and more details can be found here:
http://www.1812theatre.com.au/program.html
Kris has had a love affair with the stage, and those actors and
directors that honour it, for the past 30 years. She has acted in
over 30 productions with some of the highlights being: Stella in A
Streetcar Named Desire; Alice in I Never Sang For My Father; Pearl
in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll; Helga Ten Dorp in Deathtrap; Lady
Cynthia Muldoon in The Real Inspector Hound and Hilary in Hotel
Sorrento. Kris has directed 20 plus productions with some of the
most memorable being: Agnes of God; Steel Magnolias; Cosi; Last of
the Red Hot Lovers; The Odd Couple (Female Version); The Castle;
Nuts and The Laramie Project. Kris has also been a reviewer for
both print and electronic periodicals and written other theatre
related articles for same. She has been an in-house adjudicator for
various Melbourne theatre companies and runs successful theatre
workshops for small groups of actors. She has also been a critical
observer and advisor to VCE Theatre Studies students preparatory to
their performance exams.
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