Carpe Diem

Review: Carpe Diem

“Seize The Play”- The resurrection of the Dead Movies Society.

Richard Lee





Carpe Diem is a well structured, well presented and well performed play. The six boys make up a lovely symmetrical ‘V’ shaped pattern on stage while their Captain, Mr Keating is the focus of their attention. The direction from first time director Rayann Condy was very good and some of the performances are really strong. Nick Christo, in particular added spice and humour and some originality while Deane Schulze and Michael Taylor were very polished and deliberate as Mr Perry and Mr Nolan respectively.
However, symmetry and structure are not everything as one notable actor sage said in the car park after the show: “Film and Theatre are two entirely different media. Cinema tells a story that has already happened and theatre tells a story that is happening at the moment it is being performed.” And here in lies the problem. Carpe Diem was adapted directly from the Dead Poets’ screenplay. As a result, some of the scene’s were too short and remained unresolved and sometimes the scene changes were too long. Because of this adaptation, the play has left itself open to various criticisms.
Firstly and most notably were the accents. “Boys.” Says Mr Keating, “You must strive to find your own voice” and yet in this play all they could find were the voices of other actors. Even though Dead Poets Society was set in 1959 America, it didn’t have to be. The themes and ideas it expresses are universal. Poetry, after all goes in hand in glove with being human, not with being in a scholastically repressed American institution. Even Michael Taylor as Nolan, with the most convincing accent of the cast, kept dropping his ‘r’s’ and finding the again. Then of course there was the ludicrous situation of good Australian actors with lovely diction and delivery performing Shakespearean dialogue in sometimes questionable American accents!
Dead Poets Society renounces conformity and educational rigidity. It espouses intellectual revolution and romanticism yet Carpe Diem conforms so tightly to the script, the dialogue and the ideas of its cinematic counterpart that its spirit of rebellion becomes null and void. Possibly the film was only meant to be an original. Or maybe itÂ’s because at the time of the filmÂ’s release, it seemed so fresh, exciting and seditious, we expect other versions to be just as fresh.
It can be extremely difficult to be enthralled by a play, no matter how good the performances and direction, when the star of the show tells us, “that the powerful play must go on and you may contribute a verse” with exactly the same tone, intonation and expression as the previous verses. Carpe Diem thus becomes limited in its appeal to fans of both the original film and amateur theatre when somehow, one feels that in the very nature of its existence, its raison dÂ’Áªtre as a play, it should have been striving to reach out further. Similarly, one needed to have seen the film in order to pick up some of the subtle plot structures. We were not made fully aware of ToddÂ’s family situation and the rivalry with his brother or whether or not he signed the letter condemning Keating. A play should exist within its own right and this one seemed to target an audience of previously converted Dead Poets fans.
The problem with putting on a play such as this is that its main character, John Keating would also have to be its strongest critic. He is, after all a great English teacher. But when he says things such as, “I want to find your own walk right now. Your own way of striding, pacing. Any direction” he would be a hypocrite if he enjoyed this play. Ultimately, Carpe Diem needed to be “extraordinary” but possibly never could be.
The one great flaw in Dead Poets is the final scene, when, after drumming into them for weeks about the pitfalls of conformity, the entire class (even though most of them ‘finked’ on him in the first place) follow the weediest and most unlistened to student in the class, Todd Anderson and stand on their desks like a herd of stupid sheep. Because of this, it is also one of the film’s funniest moments. Carpe Diem saw Dead Poets Society make a statement and stand on its desk, was very impressed with what it had to say and copied it what it said without listening to what it had to say.

Despite the good acting and the good direction, in the end, Seize the Day didnÂ’t.