Colder by Lachlan Philpott
Pussycatomoko and Griffin Stablemates
From within minutes of Colder starting, I knew that this was not going to be a show for me. Try as I may over the course of its 80 minute duration to warm to it, I only came to dislike it more and more. 
The plot of this new play from Lachlan Philpott is described on the Griffin Theatre website with the following;
"A young boy is separated from his mother and goes missing in Disneyland. Adrift in the artificial world of giant mice and noisy parades, nobody can account for what happened in the seven frantic hours before he's found.
Years later his life seems normal; stable; happy. But something about that day haunts him. Something about that day remains unresolved. And then, he disappears again…"
It's quite a riveting description for a synopsis, and indeed in the lead up to its world premiere last night it has already won the R.E Ross Trust Award and was short-listed for the 2007 Griffin Award as well.
But the appeal of this play is totally beyond me.
Not only did I have no idea what was going on throughout the show, I was utterly perplexed by the form in which it was delivered to the audience. Re-reading the website this morning I was taken aback when I saw the words 'and then, he disappears again ...'
Did he? I don't remember that.
But, forgive me, I am starting at the end and ignoring the beginning.
The play begins on a simple and clean set with Disneyland music playing over. Two chairs sit amongst a few towers of clear Tupperware which contain objects that later appear in the play. A middle aged woman is placed in the middle, grabs some wool and two needles and goes and sits in the audience to knit.
From there I was totally lost.
Six actors then deliver some prose that is sort of like a long monologue mixed in with some intermittent dialogue between the lost and found boy, his gay lovers, his girlfriend, his mother etc.
The actors move in and out of the space, in between the Tupperware, removing objects from the Tupperware speaking in unison like a Greek chorus to the audience. And after 80 minutes it then finishes.
The actors and the production team do an admirable job with a script that needs an enormous amount of work. One of the problems is the actors are forced to constantly describe what is going on and what the atmosphere is like. It is raining... I am standing... etc
As someone mentioned to me last night - "I am from the old-school of theatre, I want to be shown not told."
My reply was, of course - "But that's not the old-school of theatre, that's just common sense".
Which brings me back to its recent successes prior to performance. Off the page, it must read brilliantly and with all the descriptive phrases allow the reader to conjure up an image of what the play may or may not look like - somewhat like a novel.
But on the stage, in a form that isn't read and is delivered live, it stumbles and trips over without any impact at all.
And if anyone can tell me when he disappeared again, kindly let me know. I must have missed that bit.
Until 24 May
$22-29
griffintheatre.com.au
10 Nimrod Street Kings Cross
Friday, 2 May 2008
Review: Colder
Posted by Nicholas Pickard at 1:51 pm
Labels: Australian Plays, Independent Theatre, Review, Theatre
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23 comments:
Aeschlyus, Euripides, Sophocles, Seneca, Racine, Corneille?
Not disagreeing with your thoughts Nicholas, but I'm wary of the show v tell idea. Our theatre is founded on a form that places key actions off-stage, and the reportage/interpretation of them as central.
Greg Beselas
I didn't see the production, but I'm curious...If the key action is off-stage, and the reportage/ interpretation of the actions is the central focus or form of telling the story, then how do you allow the audience space to imagine the central actions that occur (off-stage), yet stay attentive to the story being told about the key actions...? It seems like a meta-play? Is that accurate or is there more to your comment that we could hear that would deepen the discussion of your thoughts on the show vs. tell...Is there a balance sought?
The "meta" theatre comment is interesting. The device owes much to ancient Greek tragedy where, as Greg rightly notes, the action happens offstage and the characters onstage tell/react in order to drive the narrative forwward.
What is lost in translation, as it were, is that the Ancient Greeks were witness to stories/fables ... narratives with which they were very familiar. The stories of the their theatre, to my understanding at least, were stories with which they were incredibly familiar. Their audiences also numbered in the thousands, not in the tens ... or fifties.
I have seen a number of directors borrow from the device of Ancient Greek tragedy ... and on a few occasions, it has been very succesful. One of the key issues I believe that is entirely lost in translation is the point about an audiences familiarity with the narrative.
On the occasion discussed by Nicholas above, it sounds something like a triumph of style over content. I have not seen the production, but even so, I remain intrigued to hear from others who have ... and what their thoughts were.
i thought it was the reviewers job to at least try and look intelligent.
the play experiments with form and style in a way i think is very exciting.
the script doesnt need work, the audience simply have to work too, unlike the silly unmemorable television scripts staged so commonly.
I feel sad you missed the point. And sad you are reviewing when you clearly should just stay at home
What were you expecting - Summer of the Seventeenth Doll? As for not noticing when the central character went missing again, I think the 40-minute period where all the other characters keep asking where he is and reporting to the police and each other that they haven't seen him and believe that he has gone missing and keep repeating that he is missing contains all the information you need to infer that the character has indeed gone missing.
Pinhead.
"I think the 40-minute period where all the other characters keep asking where he is and reporting to the police and each other that they haven't seen him and believe that he has gone missing and keep repeating that he is missing contains all the information you need to infer that the character has indeed gone missing." ???
My god.
My point being, your criticisms of the play are strange and unfounded. If you missed the point of him going missing the second time, there's something wrong with you as it was perfectly explicit.
Nicholas sounds like this production has a team of bloggers ready to whack you if you find their work less than genius. Ah, the perils of being a critic...by the way Daniel Keene's "Citizens" could be seen as a play where the people on stage are doing little more than relating what is happening off-stage (or on the other side of the wall). When done well, it certainly can work.
The perils of being a 'critic'? I fail to see how being a critic is relevant in this case. Critics actually have to offer some sort of interpretation. Nicholas might pay to visit Australian Stage online and read Helen Barry's review of Colder to gain both a better understanding of the play and indeed of writing a review.
I can assure anyone concerned that I haven't anything to do with this show and haven't seen it, my initial quaetion was a gentle one born out of bemusement.
I'm sure there is often a concerted campaign on comments boards - but there should be room in the midst of it to discuss shows, or critics for that matter.
Greg Beselas
Get over yourself "Jason". So it didn't work for Pickard. Whhop-de-do. It happens to be HIS blog, not yours. So don't attempt to discredit him with your obvious allegiance to this production that you obviously lack the nobility to declare.
Thank god he's saved me the price of admission.
I have agree with Michael Webster, hideous cynical, STC-hating bastard that he is.
Long live objective criticsm.
"Objective"?
I can't help but laugh and cringe at the same time as I read through the comments regarding this review. I thought some good questions were going to get raised from this review, but turns out just a bit of battery and confusion. Thanks nick for the review of a show I know nothing about...since that's what reviews ought to do...send intrigue into the midst...
Did I hear someone call critics 'objective'? How funny.
Nicholas, I agree with everything you say.
The fact that this play was perfomed surprised me, let alone the fact that it won a prize.
As you say, the script needs work, a lot of it.
A play should be challenging, it should make people think, but not question 'what's going on' or think 'that doesn't even make sense' for the entirety of its duration. When that happens, it means the writing is at fault.
As an audience member, I pay to be entertained, to be told a story, to see some characters, to listen to some good dialogue or be stunned by special effects. Now, this doesn't mean a show always has to be a David Hare's play, or a Cirque du Soleil show, but it has to have at least one of the above-mentioned elements in order to engage with its audience.
This play did nothing for me.
Theatres are keen to put on innovative shows, but in this case they seem to have forgotten that 'innovative' doesn't necessarily mean 'of good quality'. Are we so thirsty for novelty that we fail to see when a script needs re-writing?
My ability to follow the story was different to yours Nicholas because someone told me about the story. It may also be that I have an interest in this style of writing which playwrights have been playing with in the last few years. The thing that really excites me about Lachlan Philpott’s writing is that he is experimenting with a form that not many of our writers are trying. It is drawn very much from classical convention, particularly of the messenger speech. Any actor who has tackled one of the epic messenger speeches from the Greek tragedies will attest to how difficult it is to recount details of something you have witnessed, which is so vivid you can still see it in front of you, and which is still affecting you, while resisting the cliché of acting it out. There are a number of playwrights I know of and maybe others can add to his list who have been playing with extending the messenger mode of speaking into full length plays. Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Arabian Night is related to this (and it will be interesting to see it later in the year at Griffin), as is some of Gary Owen’s writing, and Bone by John Donnelly which Tanya Goldberg directed did this also. Mark Ravenhill’s pool/no water is an excellent example. In these works and in ‘Colder’ there is movement between the idea of the monologue play and the memory play. I agree it is a difficult form to write and even harder to direct but it is interesting to see an Australian writer tackling it and bravely putting it up as an independent show. It is one thing to look at these far more polished international works which have had far more development and compare them to “Colder”, which yes does need more work. But surely if we are to keep the independent venues functioning as experimental and developmental spaces we need to encourage writers to use them to stage and see work they are still working on. It is also a chance for actors to work in a non-naturalistic way – something we need to encourage!
Some of them definitely had a better handle on it on Opening night – Catherine Terracini’s work was really clear and present and at times I found very touching. It will be interesting to see how the play fares as the actors become more confident in the text and the fluidity of the story. It is only by seeing the work like this up on its feet that the writer has a chance to sculpt it better, and when there are so few chances for new Australian work to be workshopped properly I think it is a great thing to see writers use the independent theatres as a chance to do that for themselves. It is a hard play to follow at times, and after the Tupperware moves it does drag a bit but that is also a staging issue I think. But it is an exciting chance to see an Australian writer moving away from naturalism and people who are interested in writing should go for the chance to see something formally different.
And last anon, the David Hare comment. Did you see the awful Vertical Hour!!!? Please. I’d rather be a bit lost at moments than bored senseless in that way.
RC
I saw The Vertical Hour and you can find it boring if it's not the sort of material you enjoy, but you can't deny it's a polished piece of work- performed on Broadway and the National Theatre in London, granted, but at least not in the development phase. If a new play needs workshopping, then by all means this should be encouraged- but not at the expense of the audience paying $30 a go.
Sometimes I wish the audience could heckle like they do at comedy gigs when the comedian fails to do what he's paid for- make people laugh! Bit harsh but the message is clear...
And just a quick note on The Vertical Hour and David Hare: there are very few writers who can sell out a season at the Olivier Theatre... So until I see one of our plays doing the same, I think we should just try and learn from one of our masters.
That doesn't mean a thing. David Williamson sells out too.
Is it a useful thing to compare the quality, artistic worth and significance of a piece of theatre to whether or not it "sells out"?
Not if we consider Daniel Keene's current production at the STC ... or the many others like it who struggle to find their audience(s). It's too convenient to suggest that this must be symptomatic of their quality.
Thank you for your comment RC. Valid and excellent points.
I wonder, SAJ, whether your days at The Daily Telegraph have made you slightly more cynical and dismissive than you used to be? You were once a champion of independent theatre ... and I would be curious to read your considered responses to the critical points raised in RC's excellent comment.
I am quite annoyed actually - I wrote a substantial response to RC's excellent comment and then accidentally deleted.
Re-writing now.
Here we go...
Thanks for your considered response RC.
I completely agree with your sentiments about new writers needing the space within independent theatres to experiment with form and style. And surely reviews and blog commentary should be part of that process regardless of whether it is positive or negative.
I don’t agree and have never agreed that just because it’s independent that it needs to be given a fairer go. Certain considerations regarding cost and time need to be given but at the end of the day, whether you go to the STC or to Stablemates, it is a paying public and not a workshop.
Michael Webster, I am amazed to see you think that I was ‘once a champion’ of the independent sector. I think that if you look at my reviews over the last eighteen months, it is clear what my preference is.
I think, however, that my interest has been shifting as I seek out new work that experiments with physicality and movement more. The Rabble’s work is one such group that comes to mind.
But as RC states, we do need to encourage writers (and may I add directors and designers) to be utilising the independent spaces for experimentation. And in a city of such high rent, it would be very easy to let go of such a commitment. The Darlinghurst Theatre is one such recent example.
It is interesting that you bring up Bone, RC, a play which I reviewed quite favourably. It is interesting to compare Donnelly (who is a very young writer) to Philpott.
For me, Donnelly (who incidentally developed Bone in Australia) had a certain sophistication that managed to weave the story in and out with constant advancement despite the Greek speech style. It was an element that I didn’t get with Colder at all as it seemed almost incapacitated by the disappearance and the constant searching… and after 80 minutes….
It is interesting that RC also points out that this particular style has already been around the UK and Europe for quite a while and used by an array of writers – and I would be interested to know how you thought that Colder may have advanced that form. Was it a greater use of memory and reflection? Or something else?
I have to wonder if RC is in fact Richard Cottrell, one of the more brilliant minds in theatre in Australia, and someone I saw at the Stables on opening night. If so, his post here only confirms my opinion of his theatrical sensibility.
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