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Soulmates Director: Matt Byrne Holden Street Theatres Thurs 17 June Until 3 July "It was a dark and stormy night..." or it should have been. It turned out to be a tempest in a teacup. After reviewing recent Adelaide productions of 'Brilliant Lies', 'Emerald City' and now his latest play 'Soulmates', I am firmly in the camp that they don't hold a candle to the fresh ideas and repartee employed by David Williamson in his earlier scripts - 'Don's Party', 'The Perfectionist', 'The Removalits' and especially 'The Club', which justly rewarded him with fame. As in 'Emerald City' and 'Silk', Williamson in Soulmates focuses on a particular profession close to his social circle. The play covers the same old ground of art versus product, cynicism and pragmatism, marital and professional entrapment, and intellectual warfare by people trapped and blinkered by pride and prejudice. In 'Soulmates' Williamson picks on the literary world to make his points, but unique characterisations are shunned for archetypal mouthpieces - what they stand for is labouriously and sometimes repeatedly articulated in often unrealistic dialogue. Improbable premises and scenes - like when the pop writer and her nemesis, the critic, meet for a drink - fill the pages. Oh yes, and somebody will be screwing somebody else's wife. The trademark quips and barbs were swamped by rhetoric and poor attempts - a low-light was the ode to a bean by one of the characters. And although Williamson's capacity to bring characters together at a peak moment of vulnerability for a denouement is alive and well, it didn't hit the mark in this production. Having just harpooned the play nearly as severely as literary critic Danny O'Loughlin does a job on Katie Best's bestseller in 'Soulmates', there is a very good chance the performance on opening night didn't do it justice. The work of the cast members that I am familiar with, and of director Matthew Byrne, was not close to their best, and they were unchallenged by the others. The stodgy parts of the script were delivered without thought, and there was too much pretending and not enough being on stage. An exception was Trevor Keeling's South African writer which had an authentic air thanks to Keeling's skillful application of his experiences growing up and studying in southern Africa. Matt Byrne's songs for scene changes slowed the pace, and his selections - from a pretty narrow catalogue of pop hits from when Williamson wrote good plays - failed to distinguish New York from Melbourne. Surely at least one of the three households we were invited into would listen to classical music or jazz or even something written in the last fifteen years. Gremlins manning the lighting and sound board caused blinking lights and miscued sounds. But that wasn't half as unnerving as the usher who stared out at the audience for more than half the play. Also, the theatre might consider removing one of the two front rows of seats placed on the floor - nobody sits in the second row because you can't see much. Always laterally thinking, Byrne arranged a launch for Steve J Spears' new book 'Murder By Manuscript' which comprised a very entertaining presentation by ex-Premier John Bannon after the fumbled curtain call. Not Williamson at his best - not a Matthew Byrne production at its best.  |
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