Winter’s Discontent

Theatre addicts like me will be enthralled by this piece. Written and performed by one of Australia’s theatrical greats, it is virtually a solo show starring William Zappa, who has worked with the Bell Shakespeare Co. Ensemble, the Sydney Theatre Company and others. Zappa gives a mesmerizing, magnificent performance.

In a bravura theatrical display, Zappa plays Robert Winter, a struggling actor. The show opens with Winter arriving just in time for ‘the half ‘ – the thirty minute call before the show starts. Winter is luckily in work at the moment, but beginning to feel trapped in the grinding seemingly never ending tour of a postmodern show called ‘Ten Episodes From the Torture, Trial and Execution of Monsieur Thernadier’. (Zappa also has links to Hugo’s character as he has played Thernadier in the musical version of ‘Les Miserables ‘). Winter is starting to feel his age; he is fighting to believe in his life as an actor, and attempting to analyse what went wrong in his marriage. He is also frequently an absentee father who greatly misses his children.

The dressing room mirror becomes the ‘fourth wall’ that this play breaks down. It is fascinating to see Winter as he prepares; puts on makeup, gets into costume and character, does voice exercises etc. to psyche himself up. Or does he? Winter talks to himself, remembering his career as an actor, his study at Drama College, his personal life and the glory and tragedy of Life in the Theatre. Time is fluid, stretched as Winter (is he going slightly mad?) gets ready and repeatedly hears the ‘half hour call’ – or even closer times to having to be on stage. Will he make it?

Firecracker performances are given of snippets of Shakespeare’s ‘Richard 111’ (the Olivier version), along with a misquoting of Hamlet and an elegiac performance of works by T.S.Eliot and Dylan Thomas. There is a rant regarding mobile phones and also a questioning of the sometimes rather dodgy morals of doing advertisements or voice-overs for various products.

Towards the end there is an astonishing, very moving performance of ‘The History of Mankind in Three Minutes Forty Five Seconds’ (or thereabouts) that Winter did as an audition piece and is the cry of a bewildered soul.

During the play Thernadier emerges as a character in his own right (represented mostly by the wig) and there is deep and meaningful discussion and analysis of power, politics, life and corruption (one of the monolgues from ‘Ten Epsiodes’, Uriah Heep-like, is extraordinary).

Also we see the life and trials of a struggling actor and how this affects his family. We learn of the disintegration of Winter’s marriage and discover the significance of the aerogramme that Winter has just received and brought with him to the theatre in the story of the life of his son Danny.

This is essentially a one person play, the character of Mo the stage manager (as played by Jeanette Cronin) is mostly only audible over the dressing room tannoy.

A brilliant, engrossing performance that reminds us that yes ‘the show must go on’.

Winter’s Discontent

For more information, click here.