Howard Barker’s 'Scenes From An Execution' is written like a fairy tale. The ambitious artist is assigned by the tricky Doge the Herculean task of painting an epic battle. The Doge is so threatened by its accomplishment that he consigns the recalcitrant to prison. While there, the Doge finds it is he who is painted into a corner, so he manufactures consent for the work. They don’t kiss in the end, but she does get a pat on the head and invited to dinner.

Hugh Colman’s set comprised two levels of dimly lit funeral black marble platforms and walls with staircases and archways recalling an Escher drawing. An incongruously large plain black cylinder (a pillar of society?) dominated the action. The opening tableau of artist with bare-bottomed lover draped for drawing across a giant embroidered pillow immediately brought us to opulent Venice of the High Renaissance.

In the opening scenes, our hero, Galactia (Rosalba Clemente), establishes her credentials as tough, independent and an uncompromising champion of truth. The latter scene with Prodo (Justin Moore) perhaps did not demonstrate as much as it could. His wobbly headgear resembled a coxcomb and he began preconditioned for ridicule instead of letting Galactia reveal his parody to him.

And in the other corner, representing any state’s arts ministry, is the suave Doge. Robert Meldrum played the perfect mix of responsible arts cadre (the Mandarin tunic was a nice touch) and pretentious meddling wanker. He commanded our attention and made his points well, remaining remarkably cool as his project headed for disaster.

His brother the admiral and hero of Lepanto, Suffici (Geoff Revell), exuded power and command, and had much menace in his stillness during his portrait sitting. Andrew Martin played a strangely attired cardinal with a similar sense of high office. I think the daughter character’s (Adriana Bonaccurso) most significant use was as an object of lust by an excellent silent cameo role played by Michael Habib - we learned nothing about Galactia from her we didn’t guess or know otherwise.

The remaining combatant in the battle between art and state is Rivera the critic (Margot Fenley). She was objective, elegant, well dressed, sharp, sensual, sexually perhaps a risk taker, had great poise, and of course, was right all along. Spot on.

Clemente looked and played Galactia so convincingly that she made it look effortless. The personality she vested in her - mannerisms and banter - even led to some cheeky behaviour on the part of the actor. I did crave more though - an explosiveness, or true grit - an even greater passion for a lusty life and less rhetoric.

Speaking of snappy dressers, the costumes in this production were absolutely fabulous, dahling - whoever you are (no credit in the program!). And the poster design expressed very inventively the thrust of the play (again, no credit in the program).

I suggested the story is like a fairy tale because the characters are archetypal and lack inner conflict - even interpersonal conflict manifests only in barracking a philosophical viewpoint. Galactia battles with stand-ins for societal interests who lack individual desires, except perhaps Carpeta, played very Christ-like by Peter Docker, but this was mostly comic relief. Consequently there was surprisingly little tension in spite of the strong personalities devised by the actors and it was up to the odd sailor to provide some visceral verisimilitude. The conflict could be generalised as between female aspirations and male dominance and control - now you have your typical marriage. But it’s just not in the script to get deep into the characters’ heads and, even under Kim Durban’s direction with her awe for Clemente’s contribution, the play stays a light-hearted look at the wild and wacky world of arts administration with, as usual, not enough focus on the artist.

David Grybowski

home|news|reviews|interviews|dance|metal|contact|advertise