Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 6 Sep 2013
It was a long distance between the director viewing the show from the back and the rest of the audience thinly populating the first seven or so rows. I had never seen a tinier gathering for a Rep show. Such is the drawing power of Declan Donnellan's 1983 adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's sweeping novel of the social climbing set during the height of British power in the early 1800s. It's not irrelevant to Vanity Fair that Thackeray wrote - also in 1848 - a collection of satirical works called The Book of Snobs, and is actually credited with popularising the use of this handy appellation.
Donnellan is a co-founder of the famous theatre company Cheek By Jowl, and he merges his love for the acting craft (seven actors play thirty-two characters) with Thackeray's original satirical intentions, in a style that would not have been unfamiliar to the throngs loving the newfangled Theatre Sports craze in the early '80s. I'm sure it was devilishly difficult to direct all these agendas because Thackeray's characterisations are so open - they even narrate their views to the audience - and are so earnestly consumed by the pursuit of their social and emotional objectives that you kind of feel sorry for them - counterproductive for parody.
The necessarily young cast under the direction of amateur theatre stalwart Brian Knott (nominated by Curtain Call for Best Male Performance in All My Sons) were bright-eyed and gave it their all. The novel has a sweeping arc of time and place, and they handled the short and choppy scenes with dexterity. Layered over the stiff-collared mannerisms were the asides and glances that signaled satire, and not infrequently there was drawn a rich portrait of character. Even with these efforts, the material was still handled far too straight and needed more of an epic theatrical treatment by stressing the contrived nature of the drama through parody, you know, like Theatre Sports.
David Grybowski
When: 6 to 14 Sep
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com
