1 - Eureka Street

accents almost entirely, and the effect ismarvellously liberating. Of the principals,only N evin has a faint touch of lace-curtainAmerican and the effect slightly weakens astrong characterisa tion. The decision todispense with twangs allows the cast roomto act and the upshot is to make the play allthe more immediate and intimate. Itremains an American play set in a particularperiod but the dominant absence of fauxAmerican highlights the reality of the worldof the play through every notation ofexpressionism and naturalism, so that thevoices of pre-World War I America and ofcontemporary Australia are fused withoutany self-consciousness or fakery.The play was staged in Melbourne undersom ething like ideal conditions at theFairfax and that intimate drama-friendlyspace sh owed an excellent production withmaximum light and shade and subtlety.It is a word-heavy play, of course, as wellas one in which the sorrows of the worldcatch fire in a whirl of adrenaline andbraggadocio and alcohol and drugs. Thetext is cut to a spare I!), calamitous threehours which seems not a moment too long.It is as deep and dark as a well whileremaining free and moody and improvised.Ridley CollegeEUniversity of MelbourneGlobalisation - Ethical andChristian ResponsesMonday 27th September, 5.30-9.30pmSTANWAY ALPHA l ECTURE THEATRE160 THE AVENUE, PARKVILLE"'""Registration 5. 15pmMax StackhouseProf. of Social Ethics, Princeton Seminary,and Ed itor of 011 1\lfora/ Business (whichMax will be speaking about on 28thSeptember, 7.30-9am, 470 Bourke St,City. Please ring for more detail s.David LyonProf. of Sociology, Queens University,Ontari o. and autho r of The SiliconSociety, Karl Marx, and j esus inDisJJey/aJtd.Cost $20, Cone $12.50 includes dinnerRSVP - (03) 9207 491 4 by 22 SeptemberBOOKINGS ESSENT IALJohn Bell as James Tyrone gives whatmay well be the performance of his career.This portrait of an ageing stager seems tome a deeper and less mannered thing thanhis famous Hamlet of a generation ago. It isa scaled-down, fine-grained portrait of anintelligent man baffled by pain and rage andpersonal weakness. It has been easy to forgetwhat a fine naturalistic actor John Bell is,because he is characteristically seen in ahaze of Shakespearean mannerism . Herethe residual actor's manner is given anironic distance and is played on shrewdly asthe true element of James Tyrone's longfarewell to his potential greatness. Theterrier-like, slightly Olivierish voice, ispulled back and the effect of the wholecharacterisation is likeable, bloodcurdlingand deeply poignant. I'd give John Bell allthe Green Room awards in the world forthis performance. It is a true vindication ofhis reputation as an actor.Robyn Nevin as Mary Tyrone is notquite so successful. The production allowsher to adopt a set of genteel mannerismswhich are appropriate enough t o thecharacter but which do not come across ascompletely natural to the actress. Nevinallows herself, as to some extent she must,to be dulcet and fey where her natural bentis fire and flint and wiriness.Her finest moment is when she raveson, stoned, to the Irish serving m aid: shesings with the relaxation the narcotic hasgiven her, all tears are wiped away and theworld of memory, of all small things, is fora moment enchanted. Nevin is brilliant inthe realism she brings to Mary Tyrone'saddiction, the wringing of the hands, thecompulsive giveaway talkiness and thesense of being insulted and injured andhaving no recourse.Both the sons are very fine indeed (eventhough one knows that they are being heldup and stimulated by the electricity andsheer histrionic stamina of Bell and Nevinat the height of their powers). BenjaminWinspear as the young, tubercular brotherEdmund, has an open, almost dazed,gentlen ess, a kind of boyish sense ofwonderment and irony that is exactly rightfor this character. H e is not, as som eEdmunds are, a passive witness to thisfestival of domestic horror, but adrift andwide-eyed in the whole sea of love-hatethat has overtaken him. Everything inMichael Edwards' production allowsWinspear to express his dramatic rangewithout impediment. No doubt as an actorh e has much to learn but he has masteredwhat he needs to play this 'nice' boy besetwith the stark ravaging phantoms of hisfamily.As the older brother, James junior, SandyWinton is da zzling. This is the kind of'supporting' acting one dreams of in thiscountry, though it is in fact wrong tosubordinate any of the main parts inO'Neill's play. Winton 's performa nce isfull of openness and easygoing humour, itsbluffness never overdone. But it hasmoments, too, of deep and laceratingnastiness that carry absolute conviction.He also carries off the quite formidabletrick of playing a character who is, at onepoint, quite drunk, without resorting tocaricature or stereotype. It's a performanceof penetrating intelligence and plausibilityand charm.This production of Long Day's Journ eyInto Night is a winner which should tourthe whole of the country and become partof the permanent repertoire of the BellShake peare Company. But not becausethere is anything particularly progressiveor flash about it- no dog would learn newtricks from it. It simply has a compellingdynamism, an extreme efficiency of action,and performances which look like a moralre vela tion simply b ecau se they arem eticulou and fully imagined and comefrom fine actors who fit their parts,more or less, like gloves.M ELBOURNE Theatre Company'sdouble Pinter bill, Th e Collection and TheLover, was a return to the seductive space ofthe Fairfax and in som e ways to theefficiencies and elegancies that underpinnedLong Day's Journey and gave it its sense ofuniversal emotion through commoncadence.The Fairfax is a splendid, intimate space,ideally suited to the sinister power plays,the black transfigurations of basic Englishlanguage- intimately familia.r and in tim a tel ysoiled- which are the stock-in-trade of thevintage Pinter of nearly 40 years ago .In Th e Collection, a young m anintimately but equivocally linked to a mucholder man is taxed by a stranger. The strangersays that he is the husband of a woman withwhom the younger m an has slept. On theother side of the stage we see the wife,preening with a kitten, dealing with theavenger as husband. In a crucial scene theolder man, the protector, talks to theputatively adulterous wife who has rompedit home (or has she?) with his young fri end.The play is a short masterpiece, full of aworld of complexly slippery but nakedlycomprehensible psychosexual nightmares,44 EUREKA STREET • SEPTEMB ER 1999