Seminar

Theresa Rebeck, famous for her television writing but also a Pulitzer Prize nominee, has written a fine play in Seminar. Full of snappy one-liners to please a main stage audience, it also delves deeply into the psyche of the writer and the constant struggle between art and craft. Real writers - true storytellers - are born, not made. They don’t choose to write, they HAVE to write, because they have things to say that must be said and they are obligated to “Honour the Gift” (my quote, not the play’s.) Having said that, even without the Gift you can make a bloody good living in Hollywood or TV Land if you have enough craft skills, and at least you are saved from the horrors of being truly talented, and thus derided, manipulated and ultimately discarded by the Doyens of Mediocrity whose quest for fame can only be achieved by talent’s decimation..

Rebeck sets her play in a swanky Manhattan apartment where rich girl Kate (the delightful Cazz Bainbridge) hosts literary seminars run by the once famous, now derided, Leonard (the ever charismatic Dion Mills). Leonard has been brought down from the lofty heights of being “gifted” and is the living proof that failed idealists make the best cynics.

In a nutshell, 4 young wannabes offer themselves, or rather their work, to be crucified by the unforgiving Leonard. But Leonard is a professional and he knows that it’s not personal - it’s all about The Work. Once the words are on the paper or the screen, they cease to belong to the writer and take on a life of their own. That’s a bitter pill to swallow for young people addicted to the drug of conceit.

Mark Yeates is simply brilliant as Martin, the young writer who refuses to allow anyone to see his work … not because he’s afraid it isn’t good, but he’s afraid that no-one else will understand his gift. His scenes with Mills are not just entertaining, they’re illuminating. They feed off each other as the world weary Leonard re-discovers his integrity through the younger man’s unexplored talent. (Integrity is a pre-requisite for the true writer – but it’s a slippery bastard that can wriggle free from your grasp at any time). In one scene…of perhaps two minutes (a long time on stage) not a word is spoken; Leonard reads and we can SEE the thought processes, the rediscovering of the joy of writing, the glory of talent; the wonder of remembering what it is to be a writer….Martin waits, undergoing his own private hell but fully prepared for Leonard to not “get it.” It’s superb acting from both men – Mills, whose work is always impeccable, and Yeates, who is rapidly establishing himself as one of our finest young stage actors.

But this is not a two man play, complex and brilliantly realised as these characters are. Cazz Bainbridge is totally convincing as Kate, willing to play any game just to be noticed. She undergoes startling growth through the two acts and never fails to be convincing. Darcy Kent is a real find and an exciting talent. He dons the mask of Douglas - long on craft and pretension, short on talent and humility - sans socks and with trousers fashionably too short, to show his ankles. It fits more like a glove than a sock. Ra Chapman, beautiful and with a constant undercurrent of sexuality, gives Gravitas to Izzy, the most underdrawn of the characters. Izzy has no talent, but she’ll make it anyway through sex and craft skills.

Rebeck has given us archetypes rather than stereotypes. Writers are too complex to be stereotypes - vain and vulnerable, part egotist, part introvert, sophisticated and naïve, spiritual and soul-less, they embody the thousands of characters they will create.

These five actors, and their director Mathew Cox, totally understand the cut and thrust and the wounds sustained in the battle. The result is terrific theatre. Artefact is a new company. Do we need another new Theatre Company? Well… yes, if the standard is as high as this one offers. But, while writers usually work in isolation, theatre companies can’t afford to. See this play, not because you’ll be supporting a new company that thoroughly deserves it, but because you’ll be entertained, enlightened and touched and come away realising that not everyone who writes a blog is a writer, and not all writers have something to say. Being a writer is hard. NOT being a writer is even harder. Trust me.

Coral Drouyn

Photographer: Theresa Hamilton.