Paul Gleeson as Brett Whiteley in Brett and Wendy … A Love Story Bound by Art. Photo credit: Fabian Astore.
While Kim Carpenter’s new production, Brett and Wendy … A Love Story Bound by Art found its magical moments in its choreography and musical score, this production was plagued by overwhelming gaps in its storytelling.
Premiering at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatres on the weekend (19 January), from the onset it felt out of balance; it lacked a raw truth, too caught between veneration and celebration.
I found that lack of depth a curious flaw, given Carpenter’s committed research and access to Wendy Whiteley, coupled with the vast material on Whiteley, whose persona has blossomed into iconic proportions in recent years – a story so nuanced and enigmatic that, like his paintings, it has become larger than life.
This abridged bite out of Whiteley’s life, however, does allow for the visual aspect of this production to shine – a quality that Carpenter’s company, Theatre of Image has garnered a reputation for.
Known for embedding striking imagery in his productions, Brett and Wendy… was no different, with a blend of historical dates, archival clippings, locations and a small selection of Whiteley’s paintings included. The high point was unquestionably the way Carpenter collaged this imagery together, combined with dance and music as equal storytellers.
The play opens with the introduction of the characters as abridged bylines: “I died … I died … I wrote a book .. I made a garden.” Their staccato delivery moves into an overly weighty chapter on Whiteley’s childhood, further drawn out with a slap-stick quality.
But the production did settle into itself.
Whiteley burst onto the London scene, with his meeting with Wendy captured in an electric, sexy dance scene. While Paul Gleeson as Brett, and Leeanna Walsman as Wendy, were convincing in their roles and conveyed great passion, that spark later dissipated, with their delivery moving more into individual monologues.
Walsman captured Wendy’s style, strength and independence, while Gleeson had good emotional range in taking on the complex character of Brett.
Leeanna Walsman as Wendy Whiteley in Brett and Wendy… A Love Story Bound by Art. Photo credit: Fabian Astore.
Nevertheless, something was lacking. For example, the couple’s divorce announced late in the play held little reality of the lived emotional intensity of such situations. Furthermore, their relationship with daughter Arkie (Yasmin Polley) was not developed beyond her introduction in the play. She boldly announced that it was she who was the responsible one in the relationship, and yet we were never witness to evidence of that statement.
I think this is a fault of the script, rather than the acting.
Composer and musician Peter Kennard was situated on stage in this simple studio setting, and was beautifully in sync with the storytelling. The way he captured Whiteley’s brushstrokes and gestures with percussion and drums offered a charged emotion that punched this production into a fourth dimension.
In sync, Gleeson leapt and dragged imagined paint on hands across the stage, played to the audience as if the canvas. It was smart and engaging theatre, and Gleeson delivered these moments with convincingly.
Likewise, choreographer Lucas Jervis and his team of dancers – Robbie Curtis, Dean Eliot and Naomi Hibbgerd – stitched together this narrative. Their use of a bathtub, both in the Sydney studio as muse to Whiteley’s iconic bathroom series and in London as a site of violence for the John Christie Notting Hill murders, made for great theatre.
Production still, Brett and Wendy … A Love Story Bound by Art, Riverside Theatre. Photo credit: Fabian Astore.
The use of a scrim rolled on stage further worked in animating Whiteley’s almost manic engagement with the Christie murders. The play explains his obsession as a way of dealing with his father’s death – one moment that was perhaps most the revealing of Whiteley beyond the mythology.
Another high point was the knotty choreography of Gleeson and the dancers portraying a late night acid trip in the New York studio; like a monkey on your back itching for escape, the dancers writhed over Gleeson. More was reveled in action than words throughout this play.
There was a missed opportunity to animate Whiteley’s paintings, created in a similar drug-induced state. I would have loved to have seen Whiteley’s paintings crawl into life instead of the production’s over-reliance on Adobe’s Ken Burns effect on a still image. Maybe it has something to do with the copyright release on the image use?
Similarly, the sequence for Whiteley’s death at a coastal motel in Thirroul, NSW, was a little undeveloped. The use of an architect’s model and toy car was a nice touch – and could have been fleshed out more.
In terms of the extended cast, Tony Llewellyn-Jones was convincing at Whiteley’s father Clem and the painter Lloyd Rees, who was a great inspiration to Whiteley, but the other performance felt thin. Jeanette Cronin’s overacting of Whiteley’s sister Frannie Hopkirk in a scene set in their childhood did little in setting the tone, however she found her footing in a fleeting vignette of a housewife in a suite of street silhouettes.
Overall, this play passes muster but it does little to extend, to push outside the comfort zone, and so consequently fails to soar.
Theatre of Image celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2019.
3 stars out of 5: ★★★
Brett and Wendy… A Love Story Bound by Art
A Theatre of Image production in association with Riverside Theatres and Sydney Festival
Creator / Director / Designer: Kim Carpenter
Composer and Musician: Peter Kennard
Choreographer: Lucas Jervis
Digital artist: Fabian Astore
Costume Design: Genevieve Graham
Lighting Design: Sian James-Holland
Riverside Theatres, Parramatta
18 – 27 January 2019
