Jason Klarwein and Penny Everingham in Once in Royal David’s City. Image by Philip Gostelow.
Well known Australian playwright Michael Gow is the writer of Once in Royal David’s City a work that implies symbolism but canvasses the prosaic everyday in its exploration of grief, loss and class warfare. Gow is best known for writing Away in the 1980’s – a landmark of contemporary Australian drama – set at Christmas time and exploring three different Australian families. He was the Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company from 1999 until 2010.
Once in Royal David’s City is directed by Sam Strong and is a co-production with WA’s Black Swan Theatre and Queensland Theatre running initially at Western Australia’s State Theatre Centre and poses several questions for the viewer. One of which is the challenge of a technical work that attempts to utilise the structure of Brecht’s epic theatre which prioritises message above the character. Also another more particular one: why insist on the ‘realism’ of an actor sitting on stage staring out at the audience flashing a remote at them and describing what they are viewing on television? Granted, it is a construct that allows us to have access to the internal monologue of a character’s mind – in this case theatre Director Will Drummond played by Jason Klarwein – who switches between television and Internet scrolling on cancer, but it feels like lazy writing to have an actor point a remote out to the audience and describe a television scene. Though that was better than writing at the end of the piece when the same character gives a lecture to school children (us the audience) after railing about class war and how we are all doomed to become even greater consumers in capitalism, and says: ‘Bertolt Brecht famous for exposing social truths in his revolutionary theatre, originator of political theatre… oh you can look him up on Google’. Is that exposing the mythic nature (as per Brecht) of Google or just another shorthand style of writing?
Will’s father, well played by Steve Turner, dies and his mother, played by Penny Everingham arrives in town for a holiday by the beach for Christmas, which doesn’t eventuate due to her unexpected trip to hospital. She is detained there, with the doctors not revealing that she is terminally ill until towards the end, so Will goes in and out the hospital playing at Christmas cheer. Everingham lays in the hospital bed for much of the play, which is strategically positioned at the end of the stage – and had earlier echoed to the emptiness of an airport waiting room.
Actors take on multiple roles, and Steve Turner must be singled out for his convincing work in each role as he truly inhabits the character. The aforementioned role in front of the television where the performer ‘breaks out’ and talks back to Will the viewer as well as the audience pokes fun at reality singing stars – a scene Emma Jackson does with good comic timing. Adam Sollis also brings a great energy to his performance and is one to watch. The ensemble work is well done and it is enjoyable to see a full age range in the cast of actors. A special mention must be made of Adam Booth as the overworked doctor in the hospital. He was convincing in both attitude and accent.
The actors carry out the scene changes during the performance as part of the Epic theatre model and mostly those transitions work well, despite some disjunct in the beginning parts of the play. Stephen Curtis in doing the design has optimised the back half of the stage and the lighting by Matt Scott capitalises on the use of curtains particularly during the beginner’s introduction to Marxism and capitalism and very effective shadow play. His lighting during the hospital scenes is particularly effective at creating atmosphere. There is a short re-enactment of The Importance of Being Earnest where Kaye Stevenson and Toni Scanlan do star turns with full acting chops.
It ultimately feels like a thinly written work and the themes of the death of a parent and questioning the meaning of life end up being swamped by the polemical parts of this work. It is disjointed, moving from the everyday grief of a hospital visit to suddenly dealing with terminal illness to incorporating Brechtian theory and political discourse railing against capitalism interposed with some ‘gay’ Christmas dancing – it is Christmas after all! Jason Klarwein has a casualness about his performance that is not endearing and makes it hard to relate to him. Much of the play hinges on his performance so his rather lukewarm performance did not sit well with this reviewer and guests. This is not aided by dialogue that frequently seems to take inspiration from texting. The deconstruction of process during the play as Will discusses Brecht and moving crowds around on stage are more or less instructional guides on Brecht and diminish the experience. Ultimately though if you don’t care enough about the main character, you don’t care what the outcome is, and being treated to lectures as an audience member is not what is enjoyable about theatre going.
Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
Once in Royal David’s City
Written by Michael Gow
Performed by Black Swan Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre
Directed by Sam Strong
Designed by Stephen Curtis
Lighting Design by Matt Scott
Sound Design by Ash Gibson-Greig
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre, Perth at 7.30pm. 29th March – 9th April 2017. QPAC, Brisbane April 22nd to May 14th 2017
