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ARTLOOK #7 | December / January 2004/2005
Reviewed by:
Christa de Jager
Written by Robert Reinhart
Directed by Adam Maher
Produced by ARTS Productions
The Street Theatre Studio
6 – 22 January
Telling Moments
The dreaded monologue! Actors hate it and auditions inevitably call for it. Although highly suspect as the best method to test an actor's ability, it is the relentless magnifying glass that shows up the tiniest flaws in technique, focus and characterisation.
ARTS Productions' staging of Telling Moment—which was written by Robert Reinhart and local contributors, is a series of monologues. On reading the script it was clear that Reinhart is not a particularly brilliant writer. What wasn't clear was whether these monologues were ever intended to be performed as a whole. However, they read interestingly, with the right amount of humour and sadness, light and shade, to give an actor something to work with. The big question on reading the script was what the director and actors were going to do with it; because it was clear that the challenge would lie in the directorial process to turn these quite separate gay and lesbian accounts into a cohesive theatrical event.
I must admit to some ambivalence on reviewing Telling Moment. Theatre comprises many elements of which form, content and venue are three important ones. My problem lies in marrying the first two with the third. The evening reminded me of an extended Bunch of Fives, or those hours spent evaluating national eisteddfods. Setting up the audience for an evening of theatre probably wasn't the best choice for this kind of work. The monologues were presented, mostly, as they appeared on the page—with no attempt to integrate them into a structural whole. Maybe a more informal setting with nibbles and wine would have suited better the two musicians and the seven actors doing nineteen monologues. The lack of cohesion was compounded by a black-out after every monologue, which set the signal and convention for the audience to clap after each one.
Listening to monologues never fails to remind of how exposed an actor is when performing. In the monologue actors can so easily revert to personal habits, clichés and affectations. But it is also in the monologue that an actor's willingness to be vulnerable is showcased. Like a consummate lover it asks for total focus, skill and abandon. And some of the actors in Telling Momentsucceeded, in varying degrees, in creating that magical moment for the audience—e.g. Ian Croker's rendering of Walking the Dead and Three Men at a Bar, Adele Lewin's Girls' Night Out, although the dialogue was too soft at times, Oliver Baudert's character in Three Men at a Bar and Duncan Ley's A Prayer for what?
This production really needed an assessment of the form of the work and its demands on all company members—director, actors and technical crew—to coordinate it into a satisfying whole. Assembling a good cast is part of the recipe but it doesn't translate into the finished dish.
Christa de Jager is an actor, director and theatre practitioner.
