Checking Out, But Not Leaving The Hotel Sorrento

Of course the script is the foundation upon which any performance is built, however it is the director, actors and back stage people who flesh out the words with all the human shades of light and dark.

Sometimes, regardless of budgets and name stars, the end result can be shallow, as with the much touted “Blue Room” – which not only relied on nudity, but needed it to survive … and survive it did, raking in the moola – a flash of a dick and the glimpse of a fanny is a recipe for a guaranteed audience.

Regardless of acting and directing skills, now and then a play jars. David Williamson’s “Face to Face” is great stuff, but ends very unsatisfactorily, with a vapid US sitcom happy-ever-after finish. When “Shift Swapping” (again, engrossingly good), came to an end, my partner and I were reasonably sure it was an interval and the second act would follow, but indeed it had finished, although in our minds, it was incomplete.

Luke often finishes his messages with a quote from T.S.Elliot, to the effect that if one understands a play on the first viewing, there’s something wrong. I disagree. For me, the most powerful works are those where characters and situations are immediately and sometimes painfully recognisable, where one sits almost mesmerised, with a mind darting between remembered experience and the events unfolding on stage, understanding completely what is seen within and the scene without. Perhaps that’s why I like Australian and New Zealand plays so much – they speak of a world and people I know.

As a very inexperienced amateur actor and a late comer to theatre at that, it’s a revelation to see someone you know, give an outstanding performance and realise just how inadequate your own skills are. Come to think of it, the world can relax I have neither the body, nor the gift of suitably sized appendage to take the male roles in the “Blue Room!”

I saw “Hotel Sorrento” last night and forgot I was in a cold draughty decrepit hall, with the rough sounds of Northbridge nightlife streaming in through every crevasse ad crack in the building. It reached a stage where I was deliberately trying to fault the production … and came up with three things:
The artist never looked at the apples she was painting.
When the author put her arm around the painter on the jetty, it didnÂ’t seem a natural movement.
The old Rechabites bogy of muffling mens voices occasionally reared its annoying head.

Others have rightly paid credit to all involved, I would only like to add that for me, Class Act’s “Hotel Sorrento” is right up there with PTC’s “Skin Tight,” as the best examples of how good, relevant and emotionally satisfying great theatre can be. I head off for a rehearsal this afternoon, feeling inspired.
Thank you people.
All good things
Greg Ross