Reviews

Lyric Opera continues to astound. Performed in the round, this rarely heard Rossini one-acter was quite a romp, with strong performances from the talented cast. But it was the innovative direction which sold me.

Before the opera started Raphael Wong, as the Inn keeper, wandered around with a tray of coffee cups, offering drinks to the patrons. Then, during the overture, various characters came out to establish their credentials and set the scene. This was timed to the music and performed with confidence and precision.

He’s addicted to alcohol; she’s addicted to him.  That’s the tag line of Amy Tofte’s demanding ‘experimental’ text, which deliberately blurs what’s ‘real’ and what’s ‘a play’ – i.e. a play within a play – and a play within a play within another play…  If that sounds even potentially confusing, that’s okay: the confusion – or disorientation – is deliberate and in a sense the point of the exercise.

This is a play with two worlds that seem at odds; the Kingdoms of Sicilia and Bohemia are vastly different places with strangely intertwined destinies. Sicilia is portrayed as a place of grace and elegance but beneath the smooth and polished veneer lies the seeds of tyranny. King Leontes (Adam May) makes an almost inexplicable descent into madness through his insane jealousy of his friend Polixenes (Paul Robertson), King of Bohemia. This psychological journey is conveyed with intensity and vigour, and May is gripping as a man besieged by his own overactive imagination.

A fascinating, if little known, true story; a strong performance from a revered Australian actress, and a subject that must never be allowed to be forgotten, help to counter the weaknesses of Gail Louw’s play, which vacillates between pedestrian and melodramatic without any progressive emotional arc in its repetitious 90 minutes of exposition.