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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, No. 2. August 7, 1974

Drama

page 17

Drama

Cartoon of a man with a removable face

Ubu Roi:

When we get bored we make charades. If we have the time and the meant, we do it with style, using costumes, make-up, props etc. And if, furthermore, we are intelligent and of faultless pedigree, those extras may convince us we mean something by the charade and we then persuade our audience to applaud our act. It is a strange process whereby what was unequivocally, a kick in the face, becomes in its turn a collection of faces pleading for kicks; but this is the history the production of Ubu Roi bears witness to. Yeats, following the notorious 1896 premiere, was moved to comment; 'After us the savage God'. The news from Memorial Theatre is, God has altogether lost his savagery and his being too, and that in his absence his creatures play pretty games. I would not mind so much if these people had not used a text which still has in it the stuff from which real theatre is made. Drama Society has already abused and misused Becket's 'Waiting for Godot'. Here they merely continue their jolly romp around the body of modern theatre, forgetting that without due respect, the body may become a corpse. It is a production which rests more on the assumption of Jarry's genius than any of the plays he wrote; it works with the pretensions of the avant-garde rather than with the real conflicts that have, occasionally made an avant-garde necessary. In a word, it short circuits itself, tipping its cap to both author and audience with an equally earnest desire to gratify.

'Ubu Roi' itself is a kind of marriage of the sublime and the ridiculous, a schoolboy fantasy given free rein down the corridors of high finance and power. Ubu, up on his financial horse, farts and flusters his way into any hall that is the least bit hallowed, leaving after him his incorrigible stink. He is anarchic, he is grotesque, he is even terrifying, in that there is a crazy logic in all he does — the thing that made Cyril Connolly call him 'the Santa Clans of the Atomic Age'. But he is not, finally, a buffoon and nor is he much fin. He's funny, of course, but that's not quite the same thing. It is here that I would locate the basic fault in the production. Jim Spalding Charlie Moore, who played Ubu, and almost everyone else in the cast, thought they were playing a knock-about farce and playing it for laughs. In so doing, they entirely lost that element of the sinister and the grotesque which is what makes the Ubu plays the masterpieces they are. It is worth remembering that the play was first conceived for puppet theatre, I believe that for any production of it to succeed, that kind of stylisation must be somehow incorporated. Puppets, as Ted Hughes has it, 'are deeper than our own reality: the more human they look and act, the more elemental they seem.' This cast, with one or two exceptions, were people first — scrubbed and cheerful at that — and characters either second or not at all. Even the numerous parodies of various notable set pieces (particularly from Shakespeare) that the play contrives, are allowed to pass with barely a nod; and from a university cast, probably all English students! The one player who deserves mention is Murray Gadd as Boggerlas. He did at times realise the world of insane double-standards in which : he had found himself. And perhaps Philippa Campbell's Mere Ubu would have impressed me had I not seen her play exactly the same role in that ill-starred 'Waiting for Godot'.

Since I believe the show was spoiled by a basic misunderstanding of the play (if it was not a refusal to understand) it is difficult to give praise to those aspects which were well-executed. I mean, the costumes and the make-up were excellent, the music always apt and sometimes genuinely funny, and the stage design generally clever in conception, if not in application. These technical accomplishments cried out for something to support or complement and they did not find it. The programme notes are nothing more than gratuitous cock-sucking, entirely nauseating. Jarry spins in his pint-sized grave, unredeemed.

The paradox is, Jarry spent all of his life and much of his energy tilting at all that is silly and false, and bis despair, as Yeats saw, was visionary in its implications; here we have a production, purporting to be of one of Jarry's works, which is itself silly and false. Something in the very nature of drama as a university study is involved here. It seems to me that whatever commitment these students have, it is not to theatre as a means of personal and public expression and certainly not to theatre as a means of life. The dominant attitude is one of frivolity, a willingness to indulge in good clean fun to hearts content, but never, on pain of awakening, to mean what is said. Jarry may be fun, but he is not 'good' and never clean. I think it only fair to give him the last word:

"No cherry; just
A souvenir —
Rubber dust:
'Ubu was here!'

'One thing bugs me,
Makes me black;
Want no nookie
In the sack!"

Biedermann and die Brandstifter:

The German Department's dramatic production for 1974, following last year's highly successful 'Der Kankasische Kreidekreis', was 'Briedermann and die Brandstifter', a play by Max Frisch. In the lead role, Chris, Kelly did well with a difficult task, keeping the German at a high level of fluency, at the same time as he conveyed the character of the unbelieving Biedermann with a remarkable degree of subtle humour. He was ably helped by the talents of Detlev Vosgerau who steals the show as the conman/boxer Schmitz. The scenes between Schmitz and Babette (Biedermann's wife, played by Gillian Adsett) are some of the funniest in the play and in the 6th scene, Detler shows that he is well at home in his comic role as he hacks coarsely through his food in a manner neanderthal man would have been proud of.

Eisenring, as the impeccable and crafty leader of the incendiaties, is well represented by George Mendty who like Detler Vosgerau plays the part with great humour and conviction.

Gillian Adsett as Biedermann's wife is one of the strongest characters with good clear voice production all the way through.

It is obvious that the play will warm up after the first few minutes on stage and indeed it gets better as the cast telaxes into their respective roles. The second section is noticeably more interesting and better presented than the first, especially with the entry of a variety of smaller, but important, characters. Although he appears only twice in the performance for short periods, Dillwyn Middlestone makes quite an impact as the Dr Phil.

The main let down in the play lies in the chorus, which although at times came across successfully, in the main failed to be fully effective because of a lack of vocal unity. One got the impression that the 'Chorfishrer' took her lines rather too seriously and these tended to drag rather.

Much of the interest of the play lies in its words, rather than action, which is limited to a certain extent to the central table and attic. The cast did manage to maintain this interest though, and for this they and their director must be congratulated.

Hedda Gabler:

'Hedda Gabler' charts the growing frustrations of a young woman, seeking to escape from the boredom of bourgeois society into a kind of aristocracy of the spirit. She eventually achieves this release in, for her, the one 'perfect' act of her life — suicide. Every aspect of this life: her marriage to George Tessman, their honeymoon, the academic circle in which he moves, his aunt, the society which surrounds them and of which they are a part — all these things, quite literally, bore her to death. Only her husbands rival, Enlert Lovborg, is sufficiently out of harmony with this settled society to excite her. But as a relationship with him is out of the question, only a romantic vision of his death inspires Hedda Gabler.

Unable to control her own life, Hedda is inordinately obsessed with the lives of those around her. If Enlert can rise above bourgeois inertia, there may be a chance for her as well. Finally, confronted with Judge Brack's hints about the scandalous implications of Lovborg's death, Hedda rejects his ethic of compromise and takes her own life. Her action, the, eby falsifying Brack's final words — "People don't do that kind of thing". Thus, the claims of the idea, to use a phrase of Ibsen's, defeat those of conformity and conpromise.

Janice Finn, as Hedda, manages the boredom very well, although she should drop the Edith Evans intonations. However, she didn't convey nearly enough of the passionate idealism which emerges as the driving force in Hedda's life. The burning of the Lovborg manuscript was done in a manner recalling the worst excesses of "The Exorcist". Overall she seemed to affect a performance rather than draw on any inner resources.

The actor playing George Tessman was pleasantly wet and his, no doubt, was the intention. Bill Stalker gave a thoughtful performance as Judge Brack, contributing the bulk of the play's rather dry humour.

The director has chosen one of the better translations, a version which is more speakable and less lumpy than some of the earlier renditions into English. His direction is efficient but, perhaps a little too restrained. The designer — on the other hand — deserves to be congratulated for one of the most intricate and formally beautiful sets seen at Downstage for some time.