Reviews

Scaramouche Jonesis a wonderful opportunity to see veteran actor Colin Friels convey a complex character with splendid insightful skill.

In a very short eighty minutes, Friels captures and reels in his audience, entrancing with stories of the fictional clown Scaramouche, who has lived an exceptional life that highlights extraordinary events and happenings of the 20th Century.

The whisper in the foyer amongst regular patrons was that this production was the best one staged by the Rockdale Opera Company in many years. Walking into the Rockdale Town Hall I was immediately impressed with the pride in the company’s heritage. Posters adorned the walls promoted the company’s 70 years of service to the community, including two previous productions of this sparkling operetta.

If you’ve wondered what Ibsen’s Nora Helmer did after she slammed that door and left her husband and three children, this sequel gives an answer.  An answer.  It’s fifteen years later and Nora (Marta Dusseldorp) returns – through that very same door.  She’s discovered that her husband Torvald (Greg Stone) never filed for divorce which means that they are still married and (under Norwegian law of the time, say 1895) she is in legal difficulties and could lose everything she has achieved over those fifteen years of independence.

In 1960 The One Day of the Year was rejected by the Board of the Adelaide Festival of Arts who felt that the play was too controversial and producing it could run the risk of insulting the RSL.  In July of that year the Adelaide Theatre Group, under the directorship of the inimitable Jean Marshall, mounted the world premiere of the play in Willard Hall, Wakefield Street. It turned out to be a production as controversial as the Festival Board had predicted and, with Jean and other participants receiving death threats, there was a heavy police presence on Opening Night.