Simply the actor SOLO by Colette Rayment Solo, a programme of solo performances written, devised and acted by the third year students of The Drama Studio (formerly Nimrod Acting Classes.) Seymour Centre, Downstairs. Sydney. Opened February 4. 1981. Director. Tim Robins; Assistant. Anthony Knight; Stage Manager. Ian McKellar.
religious and racial fanaticism, eccentricity and banality. Range of characterisation ability was more evident with some actors, such as Glenda McPhee, Anne-Marie Gale and Michael Meagher, than with others who tended to present the same personality in the guise of this or that profession or occupation. Generally, however, the students’ selfproclaimed aims — to study the basis of characterisation and the effect of relationships on a character — were
realised. A movement of the finger, a jerk of the body, a stony silence and still body would succinctly indicate to the audience what kind of reaction the character portrayed is "receiving" from the imagined person whom he or she is loving, brainwashing, persecuting, etc. In their direction of the students, Tim Robins and Anthony Knight exploited these subtleties to the full — a mandatory substitute when the show is no conglomerate of skills but simply the actor himself — solo.
(Stuileni)
In the Drama Studio’s presentation of some twenty-seven self-contained solos they cannot be called monologues since the audience is clearly invited, by conjuring in fact, to imagine the presence and vocal interruptions of the "other characters" in each solo — it was quite evident that some actor-writers worked from scripts that would be quite functional as episodes of a TV series, while others created scripts that, due to their special wit or pathos were quite literary and well able to stand alone. David Hall’s creation, Dr Rakish, promised to be such a script particularly as the suave gynaecologist told his pregnant wife to cheer herself up by going and buying a new dress; but it fell away as the piece became too heavily concerned with theories of children as useful units of society and so on. Colin Mitchell created two amusing figures — a nervous, selfindulgent Palings attendant, hounded by a woman wanting a Pergolese recording, and a whimsical psychiatrist who delights in his female paktient’s bursts of alter ego as he urges her in her hypnotic trance to "entertain" him. Josphine Leo’s varied characterisations of Rosalie, a naive country lass; Manefa, a prophet of doom and muscat wine; and Mrs Eddy, an ethereal Christian Scientist were both intelligently contrived and well acted. The tour de force of the evening was Michael Meagher’s presentation of a Randwick race caller/commentator aptly named Ken Parnell. As a piece of Australiana it was accurate, amusing and, to those who have been known to frequent the turf, exciting. In their study of characterisation the majority of students sought to depict individuals from the adolescent world of police and parental oppression, drugs, d a tin g , sex (h e te ro s e x u a l and homosexual), rape, unemployment, with some excursions into prisons, doctors’ rooms and hospitals — all of which were efficiently presented with a minimum of props and a delightful absence of set. Some students, however, showed signs of a b ro a d er life experience a n d /o r im ag in atio n in th eir convincing presentations of senility and old age.
"Minnie" by Anne-Marie Gale
TH EA TR E/Q LD jorie. Kaye Stevenson; Kathleen, Betty Ross; Alfred.
Style and • • precision ANNIE HOME by Jeremy Ridgman/State Rep A nnie by Thomas Meehan. Charles Strouse. and
Martin Charmin. Queensland Theatre Company, Bris bane, Qld. Opened. February, 1981. Director. Alan Edwards; Designer, James Ridewood and Graham MacLean. Stage Manager. Ellen Ken nedy, Sound, Peter Freeman. Cast: Annie. Deanne Burns, or Tereska Harbottle; Miss Hannigan, Bev Shean; Oliver Warbucks. David Clendinning; Danae Harbottle; Susan Wilkinson; Jane Daley; Danelle Denny; Katy Hopkins; Bettina Lewers; Mark Penman; Jack Webster; Darien Sticklen; Peter Noble; Lyn Treadgold; Sally Robertson; Margery Forde; Karen Crone; Jacqui Hall; Duncan Wass; Kate Richter; Stephen Haddan; Frank Lloyd; David Leith; Hugh Munro; Anthony McGill; Lyn Moorfoot; Jack Webster. ( Professional) H om e by David Storey. Brisbane Actors Company.
Brisbane. Opened, February. 1981. Director, John Milson; Designer. John Milson; Pro duction Manager. Margaret Savage. Cast: Flarry, Alan Endicott; Jack. Greg Gesch; Mar-
Steven Hamilton. ( Professional)
It has oft-times been the task of the musical to convince us that however little gold we may have in the bank, every cloud had a silver lining. Annie, in this respect, if not in terms of inventiveness, is the Amer ican musical par excellence. Depression needn’t be depressing, it hammers home, and with such gaga ingenuousness that one needs occasionally to pinch óneself to remember some of the cutting ironies that characterised Hollywood musicals actually written during that first depression, such as the exquisitely satirical Gold-diggers o f 33. Someone’s tongue may have edged into his cheek with the idea of a Roosevelt in the thrall of both a bald capitalist and a cute foundling who, we learn, inspires the New Deal with a song and a winning smile, but otherwise Annie is unadulterated schmaltz. Give a winsome orphan a rich foster father and a household of soft-hearted domestics, save her from preying imposters and re unite her with her pooch and the economic d e c lin e of th e W est fa d e s in to insignificance. The music is bright and catchy without being memorable. Innovative or witty it THEATRE AUSTRALIA APRIL 1981
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