Summerfolk

Maxim Gorky’s famous 19th-century contemporary and critic (and co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre), Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, once vented his frustration with actors’ obsessions: “Non-stop smoking, cold food, sausage, herring, gossip, vulgar flirtation, backbiting, jokes, and vodka.” He could be describing the characters in Gorky’s Summerfolk. And one of this play’s funniest lines is the disdainful “The house is full of theatre types!” as the cast of characters expands. Published in 1905, the same year as the uprising against Tsarist Russia’s social system, Summerfolk displays a collection of upper-class characters at their summer holiday retreat, waited on by servants, some dismayed by the pointlessness of their lives, many blissfully unaware of the social revolution about to take place. The work is dated but does show that, through human history, people in privileged positions do not change much at all.

This production of a new script by the show’s director, Kate Wild, is performed by Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University’s strong collection of third-year Bachelor of Acting students. Lulled into a summer haze of daydreaming, poetry, parties and unsuitable love entanglements, the characters here are more TV soap-opera than theatre drama. There is no tension of the impending social cataclysm, but there is comedy at the characters’ obliviousness to the shifting social strata. Some moments are truly shocking – for example, when one of the servants is looking for her lost child (the retreat has forest on one side and a lake on the other!) and no one helps her – worse, she is dismissed as a nuisance. As a bunch of mostly younger self-centred characters from the privileged class, I wonder if the script would work better if updated to our current times, complete with selfies and mobile devices instead of self-penned poetry and passing notes. And could the 3-hour play be trimmed to a more succinct length?

The cast I saw included solid portrayals by Skye Fellman and Brendan Kater as siblings Varya and Vlas who the action revolves around. I wish there had been more character development for these performers to sink their teeth into.

Mitchell Booth had a more fulfilling role and was able to highlight his obvious comic talents as Sergei, Varya’s tactless husband. As Varya’s not-so-secret and hapless admirer, the suicidally lovesick Rumin, Jordan Stott makes nimble work of a thankless role. Lending their comic talents to enliven the piece, Alexander Porteous is a wonderfully clueless and pompous author, and Georgia Faa is fabulously free-spirited as a would-be Bohemian poet. Ellen Warner shines as Yulia, the flirty mistress to many and confidently careless wife to Nathaniel Crossinggum’s perpetually cranky and charmless Piotr. Her line, “I can’t be bothered to hate you!” is brilliantly delivered.

As the servants, Ethan Waters and Emmy Moore add a modern spark – shades of things to come. Stella Peterson and Alex Swanston show they are both capable of creating a memorable stage presence, despite being somewhat miscast as the two older characters, Maria and Uncle Semyon. Picking up smaller parts in the production I saw were Isabella Berlese, Tyrone Crowe, Ruby Gudenswager and Dugald Lowis – all obviously capable of wider roles.

Xanthe Jones’s costumes underline the characters’ flightiness (even if old Uncle Semyon’s shorts seemed out of character). The set design block and steps was a little exhausting – all those characters constantly entering and exiting, stepping up and sitting down. I worried that the props were needlessly distracting, with empty wine glasses left in the path of busy stage traffic (and Champagne bottles used when the text refers to Port). And the drama sometimes got a bit ‘shouty’ which for me expels rather than expresses strong emotion.

Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko criticised Summerfolk on its debut as “shapeless and formless raw material that lacked a plot”. It is also marred by Gorky’s unanswered diatribes about the meaninglessness of life. Gorky toured to New York in 1906 and I can only wish that he’d used that experience to revise his script – it may have ended up being more Woody Allen and less Anton Chekov, and would have given this cast more opportunities to really shine. However, dealing with this difficult material will surely prepare these performers to confidently tackle any style their Acting course demands of them across the remainder of this year.

Beth Keehn

Photos: Nick Morrissey

Follow the Acting and Musical Theatre productions for 2022: www.queenslandconservatorium.com.au