Sunday Herald Sun (Australia)
26/11/2000
PAINTING BY NUMBERS.
By LEONARD RADIC.
Art and Soul (Fairfax Theatre)
AS its last production for the year, the Melbourne Theatre Company is taking the plunge and presenting a program of seven short experimental plays by Melbourne writers, all of them linked by a theme. Four of the playwrights have had full length plays staged by Playbox and are familiar to theatre patrons. But none of the seven has previously figured in the MTC's repertoire. The starting point for all seven works was a recent painting by the artist Garry Shead, Homage to Rembrandt. It depicts the Dutch master in his studio with a one winged angel, who may or may not be his muse, at his side. The task for the playwrights was to produce a short piece, 10 to 15 minutes long, using the same set of actors, the same studio setting and the painting as its basis. The idea was ingenious, even if the result is a mixed bag of work. Several times the angel appears from the ceiling, hoisted on a rope. Rembrandt appears in several guises at work in the studio. Once, in Joanna Murray-Smith's Untitled, he spends his time in debate with his naked model (Kate Kendall). In Whispering Death, written in rhyming couplets and doggerel verse, Matt Carneron provides a welcome note of humour with his neurotic hero who is a filing clerk by day and an artist at night. Not all the plays work. A couple are lame and uninspired, and scarcely earn their place. Even so, Art and Soul is an enjoyable experience and an enterprising venture. The direction, shared by Kate Cherry and Peter Houghton, is smooth and inventive while the acting by the six busy cast members is rich in variety and versatility. Kim Gyngell appears in a number of comic impersonations and is a delight every time. Louise Siversen, of BackBerner fame, reveals a flair for the comic too. The company should find further work for her.
(C) 2000 Herald and Weekly Times Limited.