Piano: A Reading in Seven Parts

This reading tenderly explores what could have happened if the individual visits to Lorne by Mark Twain, D. H. Lawrence and Rudyard Kipling, had happened at the same time. The men are accompanied by the women in their lives, Frieda, D. H. Lawrence’s wife, Susie, Mark Twain’s daughter, and Caroline, Rudyard Kipling’s fiancée.

The reading is introduced by Domenico de Clario who also plays an exquisitely responsive piano accompaniment. Tony Yap supports the spoken words with a nuanced movement accompaniment which suggests exploration, emotion, death, and a doorway to leave.

A reading is always focussed on the pages of script, yet in the hands of these skilled actors Liz Jones, John Bolton, Meredith Rogers, John Jacobs, Elly Varrenti and David Pidd the author’s relationships and their journeys through space and time to the distant Australian landscape find life. Domenico de Carlo and the authors have given them words which delicately lay bare some of these great writers’ thinking about culture and its impact on social and personal lives and their own struggles, joys and fears.

The simple black setting and very appropriate lighting provide just the right backdrop.

This is part one and it is exciting that there are Parts two and three to come.

Ruth Richter

Photographer: Darren Gill