Nothing here is
sacred or off-limits to creators Declan
Greene and Ash
Flanders. Set in a wildly anachronistic 1930s period, Calpurnia Descending takes on the fickle and everchanging carousel
of Hollywood stardom, lavish big-budget studio
productions, star vehicles and star power, and mixes it with a remarkably
effective recreation of a studio-bound backstage drama. Incredibly, it also
manages to include a pop-culture mash up that would make Soda_Jerk proud, all the while unfolding
around the story of a doomed epic of twenty-first century proportions – bigger,
better and bolder, with more glitz, more glamour, and more diva.
While Greene and
Flanders’ tongues are firmly in their cheeks as writers, Greene is careful not
to cut himself as director, because his wit and aim is savage, caustic and true
and, while vicious and catty at times, Calpurnia
– as a production as much as a character – is a nonetheless capriciously
gleeful, irreverent and frenetic. As the fading Broadway diva Beverly Dumont,
Paul Capsis is marvellous. At first like a wheelchair-bound 1930s Miss
Havisham, dressed in all her former finery, chain-smoking and drinking
endlessly, her voice like gravel, Capsis’ Dumont warms to the presence of the
younger Violet St. Clair (Flanders ) and her
inner star comes out to shine, alongside the power-hungry, scene-stealing,
scenery-chewing diva. The final scene, alone, bereft and almost-naked, is
heartbreaking, but underneath the vulnerable exterior is the heart of a born
theatre-animal, and her final speech – delivered atop a stepladder, swathed in
green cloth – is testament to Capsis’ strength as an actor and showman, as much
as it is to the characters and story. As the younger starlet, Flanders
here is in his element. Gone is the bored and disaffected persona of his Hedda
Gabler (itself the butt of a clever (obligatory?) in-joke); in its place,
is the girlish (at first) and radiant starlet who star quickly ascends to
bright and lofty heights. Sandy Gore as the producer Max and Dumont ’s
butler-cum-sycophant Tootles is deliciously greasy and grandiose. ‘But Brutus
is an honourable man,’ she almost seems to say at one point, defending Max’s
actions, but it is not that kind of drama. Peter Paltos as the stage director,
a veritable Caesar, caught in the middle of this cosmic cat-fight is as sincere
and duplicitous as he can be, until he is ultimately caught out by his own
human desires and folly, the man who got too close to the light of the star and
crashed and burned.
David Fleischer’s
gorgeous costumes and simplistic representative bare-bones set are sumptuous.
Blending the finery of a 1930s Hollywood
aesthetic with disco-glam spandex bodysuits, nylon wigs and brightly coloured
lipstick, these stars are visions to behold. They are indeed ready for their
close-up, Mr De Mille. More than complemented by Katie Sfetkidis’ bright and
vibrant lighting, as larger-than-life as the stars themselves, they work in
tandem, both theatrically and filmically, in colour and black-and-white, and
that is no mean feat at all. Jed Palmer’s music and sound design, again,
complements the visual mash-up of styles, moving from the lush sounds of a
Hollywood-studio orchestra to the contemporary clatter-and-bleep of video-game
soundtracks.
Framed by three
scenes performed in front of us, two-thirds of Calpurnia unfolds through the
mediated lens of cameras, as the action unfolds behind a large projection
screen at the front of the imposed proscenium, a mix of live performances
captured by several cameras and relayed live, pre-recorded elements,
green-screen elements, and borderline psychedelic and hyperactive animation.
The work of Matthew Gringold (AV) and Matthew Greenwood (animation), this part
of the show starts in black-and-white, before progressing into ‘Technicolour’
and continuing into the frenetic and visually-saturated world of mass-media,
video games and contemporary advertising. It is an audacious and bold choice,
but it is clever and unpredictable enough to maintain our interest for the near
hour of its deployment. There are many ingenious uses of simple technology to
create strong visual effect – from the spinning newspapers, to the mirror
scenes, stand-ins, and cinematic over-shoulder shots. There is also much
invisible and tireless work here by the stage manager and assistant stage
manager – Lisa Osborn and Amy Burkett respectively – to ensure everything runs
smoothly and flawlessly, and it is a masterstroke of theatrical malleability
and imagination.
“Theatre may have
changed since the Colloseum, but audiences have not. They’re still not
satisfied until they’ve tasted blood,” Capsis’ Dumont
says at one point, and as the knives are sharpened, claws extended and eyebrows
impeccably pencilled on, it is hard not to agree. It asks us how far we are
complicit in the creation of movie stars, how complicit we are in the
maintaining of their status, and how responsible we are for their demise;
whether we are as truly innocent as we believe, or whether our actions, desires
and supposed needs (fed to us and mediated by the mass-media) are as pure
and/or honourable as we first think. While Flanders
might put up a good fight as the up-and-coming starlet, the night belongs to
Capsis whose star, unlike Beverly Dumont’s, has definitely not faded.
Theatre playlist: 64. Sunset Boulevard: Suite, Franz Waxman
No comments:
Post a Comment