The Real Inspector Hound
Fri, 4 Feb 2005, 04:52 pmcrgwllms21 posts in thread
The Real Inspector Hound
Fri, 4 Feb 2005, 04:52 pmThe third play in Attic Theatre's threesome season is actually the fourth...!
The night begins with a presentation of Chekov's 'The Bear', a lumbering,
bad-tempered beast, which on one hand seems sluggish and hibernating, but can charge at you without warning at tremendous speed, crashing down everything in its path and bellowing with the potential to rip your head limb from limb, like a mother-in-law defending her cub when you happen to arrive home late and get in her way. Yet, like Winnie the Pooh or Humphrey, it's a classic comedy.
Stephen Lee plays the bear, and if any of you saw him in his Finley Award-winning performance of The Tempest, you can imagine what a cute and cuddly teddy bear he can be. Angelique Malcolm plays Mrs Bear, a role she is obviously suited for after a long history of producing children's plays with Class Act Theatre. Rebecca Bradley plays a variety of servants, maids, and serving-wenches with a thorough consistency of characterisation, and Ben Russell steals the final moments of the show with a jaw-dropping performance as the mysterious stranger.
Unfortunately I didn't arrive in time to see the actual play, but the programme notes are very good, and if you've seen one Chekov, you've seen them all. Actually, I don't recall ever seeing a Chekov...but you get my point. From what I gather the play lacked a director, as Mr Lee was too busy either participating or directing the next play on the bill; but as we all know many productions do very well without seeming to have a director, so this did not prove a big hindrance. And the outdoor setting of the St George's College cloister suggested the drawing room of a Russian manor remarkably well, despite the balmy Perth summer evening weather.
We finally come to the main play on the programme, Tom Stoppard's 'The Real Inspector Hound' - a 'No one will leave the house" whodunnit -type thriller, set in the isolated moors of Essex. The outdoor setting of the St George's College cloister suggested the drawing room of an English manor remarkably well, despite the balmy Perth summer evening weather.
On opening night the show seemed delayed by some sort of last-minute panic backstage, and got off to a rather slow start. But the groundwork was well and truly laid when Mrs Drudge, played by Andie Wafer, employed the useful technique of tuning in to a radio broadcast to get us all up to speed, as well as a telephone conversation which quite soundly set up the promise of what was to come.
Of course, the plot is littered with the usual red-herrings. Ben Russell reprises his role from the first play as the mysterious stranger, Simon Gascoyne, whose appearance at the manor triggers a scenario of revenge and jealousy - but is it really a motive for murder, or just a paranoid grudge, as the skeletons in the cupboard come home to roost?
I was very much looking forward to seeing Katy Warner perform, in a play this time, as the young, fresh and perky Felicity Cunningham. This new graduate shows brilliant promise, and I have no hesitation in suggesting that she'll go straight to the top.
Keep your eye on Kim Martin, as Major Magnus Muldoon. I don't want to give anything away, but he is not who he pretends to be..!
But it was when Alinta Carroll, as Lady Cynthia Muldoon, swept in like a poem, a vision of eternal grace, that I really stood to attention. She exuded a radiance, and an inner sadness. The part as written is a mere cypher, but she manages to make Cynthia a REAL person. A beautiful performance; a collector's piece.
The second act, however, fails to fulfil the promise of the first. The story hovers in a kind of limbo until we finally meet Inspector Hound, played with enthusiasm by Graham Mitchell. It was at this point that the play for me came alive, the author learning from the masters of the genre and creating a real situation, all the loose ends resolving in a startling denouement. Let us give thanks for a good clean show without a trace of smut.
But perhaps all this would be for nothing, were it not for the performance which I genuinely consider to be one of the summits in the range of contemporary theatre. In what is possibly the finest Cynthia of the past thirty years, Alinta Carroll proved to have more talent in her little finger than all of the rest combined. I consider it a public scandal that the Equity Awards to date have neglected to acknowledge her presence on the Perth stage...adjudicators, take note!
According to the programme, others taking part included Giovanni Bartuccio. I must have somehow missed his brief appearance onstage...or was he the mysterious body? Perhaps he took a more backstage role, somehow directing the whole event?
A rattling good evening out. I was held.
The Real Inspector Hound/The Bear continues at St George's until Feb 19th, 8pm nightly except Sundays and Mondays. Gates open at 6.30pm
for picnics. Bookings through BOCS ticketing.
Cheers
Craig
The night begins with a presentation of Chekov's 'The Bear', a lumbering,
bad-tempered beast, which on one hand seems sluggish and hibernating, but can charge at you without warning at tremendous speed, crashing down everything in its path and bellowing with the potential to rip your head limb from limb, like a mother-in-law defending her cub when you happen to arrive home late and get in her way. Yet, like Winnie the Pooh or Humphrey, it's a classic comedy.
Stephen Lee plays the bear, and if any of you saw him in his Finley Award-winning performance of The Tempest, you can imagine what a cute and cuddly teddy bear he can be. Angelique Malcolm plays Mrs Bear, a role she is obviously suited for after a long history of producing children's plays with Class Act Theatre. Rebecca Bradley plays a variety of servants, maids, and serving-wenches with a thorough consistency of characterisation, and Ben Russell steals the final moments of the show with a jaw-dropping performance as the mysterious stranger.
Unfortunately I didn't arrive in time to see the actual play, but the programme notes are very good, and if you've seen one Chekov, you've seen them all. Actually, I don't recall ever seeing a Chekov...but you get my point. From what I gather the play lacked a director, as Mr Lee was too busy either participating or directing the next play on the bill; but as we all know many productions do very well without seeming to have a director, so this did not prove a big hindrance. And the outdoor setting of the St George's College cloister suggested the drawing room of a Russian manor remarkably well, despite the balmy Perth summer evening weather.
We finally come to the main play on the programme, Tom Stoppard's 'The Real Inspector Hound' - a 'No one will leave the house" whodunnit -type thriller, set in the isolated moors of Essex. The outdoor setting of the St George's College cloister suggested the drawing room of an English manor remarkably well, despite the balmy Perth summer evening weather.
On opening night the show seemed delayed by some sort of last-minute panic backstage, and got off to a rather slow start. But the groundwork was well and truly laid when Mrs Drudge, played by Andie Wafer, employed the useful technique of tuning in to a radio broadcast to get us all up to speed, as well as a telephone conversation which quite soundly set up the promise of what was to come.
Of course, the plot is littered with the usual red-herrings. Ben Russell reprises his role from the first play as the mysterious stranger, Simon Gascoyne, whose appearance at the manor triggers a scenario of revenge and jealousy - but is it really a motive for murder, or just a paranoid grudge, as the skeletons in the cupboard come home to roost?
I was very much looking forward to seeing Katy Warner perform, in a play this time, as the young, fresh and perky Felicity Cunningham. This new graduate shows brilliant promise, and I have no hesitation in suggesting that she'll go straight to the top.
Keep your eye on Kim Martin, as Major Magnus Muldoon. I don't want to give anything away, but he is not who he pretends to be..!
But it was when Alinta Carroll, as Lady Cynthia Muldoon, swept in like a poem, a vision of eternal grace, that I really stood to attention. She exuded a radiance, and an inner sadness. The part as written is a mere cypher, but she manages to make Cynthia a REAL person. A beautiful performance; a collector's piece.
The second act, however, fails to fulfil the promise of the first. The story hovers in a kind of limbo until we finally meet Inspector Hound, played with enthusiasm by Graham Mitchell. It was at this point that the play for me came alive, the author learning from the masters of the genre and creating a real situation, all the loose ends resolving in a startling denouement. Let us give thanks for a good clean show without a trace of smut.
But perhaps all this would be for nothing, were it not for the performance which I genuinely consider to be one of the summits in the range of contemporary theatre. In what is possibly the finest Cynthia of the past thirty years, Alinta Carroll proved to have more talent in her little finger than all of the rest combined. I consider it a public scandal that the Equity Awards to date have neglected to acknowledge her presence on the Perth stage...adjudicators, take note!
According to the programme, others taking part included Giovanni Bartuccio. I must have somehow missed his brief appearance onstage...or was he the mysterious body? Perhaps he took a more backstage role, somehow directing the whole event?
A rattling good evening out. I was held.
The Real Inspector Hound/The Bear continues at St George's until Feb 19th, 8pm nightly except Sundays and Mondays. Gates open at 6.30pm
for picnics. Bookings through BOCS ticketing.
Cheers
Craig
Stoppard this nonsense....you Orton be ashamed of yourself...
Sun, 20 Feb 2005, 06:32 amThanks Dan... I think? Not entirely sure what you're on about or on but we had a good laugh at the cast party about your post so in general we agreed you're paying us several compliments, so thanks. (Was that the melancholy Jaques getting all soppy and sentimental after a long season of plays closes?)
I had great fun 'playing the part' of a critic....best moments for me were the times that people in the audience didn't realise I was part of the show when I came in...like the poor gent who said very loudly to his companions and pointedly at me: "I hate it when people arrive late at the theatre". I wish I could have seen his face when I stepped up to deliver the first line in the play. And in retrospect I wish I'd had the presence of mind to retort, "Yes... almost as bad as people who talk loudly once the performance has started", but perhaps that would've been twisting the knife?
Dan Luxton wrote:
>
> Edna Welthorpe (Mrs) is actually Stephen Lee, the director.
> Craig (how?) realised it was Stephen and hence his (yes
> Craig's) Myrtle Birdboot post.
Oh, now you're giving away all the trade secrets. I picked it, but Stephen was clever enough to think of it. Do a google search, like I did, on "Edna Welthorpe (Mrs)" to find anecdotes about Joe Orton in the 60's writing under a pseudonym to complain about his own plays, to generate interest and controversy...
Layer upon layer upon layer....
Anyway, yes, thanks to all at Attic for a great show to participate in. Myrtle no longer rings the theatre every night to book tickets; the show's over. Thanks to those who came to see it and left their comments in another, far more sensible, thread. All the best to the cast and crew who really got on terrifically. And thanks to Dan, not only for his passionate enthusiasm in the above posts, but for going to Margaret River to perform in a Moliere, during which time I shall be having a passionate affair with his gorgeous wife.
Cheers,
Craig
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